The world changed for Amna Ashfaq last year when her teacher called her into his office and said, “Be my girlfriend.”
In an interview with Radio Mashaal, Ashfaq recalls that she was with another female when they went to the office of Amir Ullah Khan, the chairman of the Political Science Department at Peshawar’s Islamia College University.
Khan told Ashfaq’s friend to wait outside and closed the door. “He asked me to be his secret girlfriend. When I refused, he came close to me and took my hand and assured that everything will be kept secret. I just ran away from his office,” Ashfaq says.
The next day, she informed the university’s administration about the incident. Her complaint was reviewed by a committee of faculty members, who concluded that Ashfaq’s accusations were baseless and absolved the chairman of any wrongdoing.
The chairman has also denied Ashfaq’s allegations.
The committee’s decision failed to convince Ashfaq and other students. A week later, a large number of students staged a protest against the decision and sought government intervention.
The matter came to the knowledge of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Shah Farman, and he appointed his close aide to start a probe into the incident.
However, the investigation failed to address Ashfaq’s and other students’ main concern and only drew up some general guidelines to prevent similar incidents in future.
For instance, the report submitted to the KP governor recommended that female students should not be called by male teachers and other staff members to their offices alone and that male teacher must not close their doors while girl students are inside the office.
The faculty of the Islamia College University is supporting the accused teacher.
Ashfaq was not someone to give up so easily.
She took the matter to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s ombudsperson in charge of investigating incidents of workplace harassment. Taking the case to such a level was an unusual step for a student, as most such incidents happened earlier didn’t even make it to the administration of a university.
The ombudsperson, Rakhshanda Naz, issued a nine-page final verdict in April this year and recommended that the chairman should be removed from the university in line with the Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act of 2010.
Naz worked on the case for months, interviewing students as well as faculty members of the university.
Ashfaq also wants the chairman to be expelled from the university and believes that Naz’s verdict will give hope to other victims of sexual harassment.
If Khan continues working, “he will become bolder and even more people will think that they can get away with this,” Ashfaq says.
Khan has denied all accusations and says he will challenge the ruling in a higher court.
Meanwhile, students want the ruling to be implemented immediately and the accused teacher should be removed from the university.
“We would like to create more awareness about this issue,” Jabir Khan, one of the protesting students, tells Radio Mashaal. “Other students were also sexually harassed but they avoided registering their complaints. Our campaigning aims to force the university administration to address this issue.”
However, the faculty of the Islamia College University is supporting the accused teacher. In November, when the student protests were ongoing, the Teaching Staff Association made a unanimous decision to stand by Khan. In fact, they decided to support any other teacher who may be wrongly accused of sexual harassment.
“If a teacher is accused and found guilty of sexual harassment, we won’t stand by them. But if teachers are wrongly accused, those maligning him or her must be punished,” said Dilnawaz Khan, the association’s president.
In her verdict, Rakhshanda Naz criticized the university for not heeding to students’ complaints.
The ruling may be remarkable for Ashfaq and her fellow students, they face an arduous journey ahead to claim victory.
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