Court calls for abuse case record
PESHAWAR – Additional district and sessions judge Farhatullah Khan on November 3, called for all the record in the case of alleged sexual abuse of students in a local school, which went on for over two decades.
The court extended till Nov 6 the interim pre-arrest bail granted to nine former staffers of the City Government Higher Secondary School No 3 for Boys.
Senior lawyers Lateef Afridi and Sattar Khan appeared for the accused. Mr Sattar Khan raised preliminary objections to the judicial inquiry report, saying it was a copy while under the law the original report should be submitted to the court.
He said inquiries were also conducted by the school and literacy department and a standing committee of the NWFP Assembly and added that those reports might also be produced before the court.
The court then decided to summon all the record, including those reports.
Dozens of teachers had come to the court to express solidarity with the accused. They exchanged hot words with reporters, claiming that they had tarnished the image of the teachers community by giving too much publicity to the scandal.
All the nine accused had been held responsible for the sexual abuse in a judicial inquiry conducted by additional district and sessions judge Jamal Khan.
The officials had moved the court after an FIR was registered against them on the directives of the provincial government at the Kabuli police station on Oct 23. The FIR was registered under sections 377, 409, 420, 468 and 471 of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The accused staffers are teachers Himayatullah, Abdul Qayyum and Mubarak Ahmad; clerks Shahnawaz and Muhammad Humayun; watchman Abdul Baseer; and, former headmasters Syed Hussain Shah, Abdul Rashid Khan and Gul Nawaz.
In the inquiry, six of the accused were directly held responsible for the sexual abuse whereas three for abetment. The issue had surfaced in September last year.
Source: Dawn
Date:11/5/2004
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