Daily Times

HYDERABAD: “After Pechuho’s statement given in support of the teacher and the Vice Chancellor (VC) of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University (SBBU) Nawabshah, we do not expect an impartial investigation,” said Ayaz Latif Palijo, the General Secretary of the Grand Democratic Alliance, in a statement on Monday. Palijo asserted that only a judicial investigation would be acceptable to all.

Sindh Health Minister, Azra Fazal Pechuho, claimed on Saturday that the SBBU student who accused his teacher of sexual harassment was a liar. “I personally got the matter investigated and I have come to know that Farzana Jamali, a final year student of SBBU’s English Department, is lying,” Pechuho, the sister of Pakistan Peoples Party Co-Chairperson Asif Ali Zardari, said while talking to the media in Benazirabad on Saturday. Palijo’s stance was echoed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Member Provincial Assembly (MPA) Haleem Adil Sheikh, who had earlier visited Jamali’s family in Benazirabad and pledged support to her.

Shaikh condemned Pechuho’s statement, saying she should have waited for the inquiry committee to reveal its findings before making any such announcement. “In light of Pechuho’s statement, the inquiry committee’s investigations have been rendered useless,” he said. “As a woman, Pechuho should not be making such statements,” said the PTI leader, adding that in our society, it was even more difficult for women to come forward and raise a voice for their rights. According to Shaikh, Pechuho was defending the VC because he was the blue-eyed boy of Asif Ali Zardari. “This VC is ineligible for the post but was posted to the college in 2011 after the law was amended,” said Shaikh.

Last week, Farzana Jamali addressed a press conference at the Press Club Hyderabad where she levelled allegations against Professor Aamir Ali Khattak of SBBU, accusing him of harassing her for the last five months. She also accused the SBBU VC, Arshad Saleem Arain, of supporting Khattak. She claimed that when her father, Aijaz Ali Jamali, who was also a teacher, took the complaint to the VC, he tried to suppress the matter and got Aijaz arrested by the police for registering a complaint. The same day, the varsity’s spokesperson, Kashif Noorani, said that the VC had formed a three-member inquiry committee to investigate the matter. “The committee will submit its report to the VC in three days,” the spokesperson said, but no report was presented far.

Published in Daily Times, September 11^th 2018.