In this photo taken on October 14, 2024, female policemen stand guard near a wall scrawled and hand-written by protesters during a demonstration to condemn the alleged rape of a female student in Lahore. , Photo courtesy: AFP
For Pakistani police, a report of rape on a college campus that went viral this month is “fake news” stoking unrest. For the protesting students, the social media posts offer a rare public reaction about sexual assault.
But as conflicting narratives have spread from the Internet to the streets, both sides agree that the case has created a climate of legitimate fear.
“Girls who go to campus definitely feel threatened,” Khadija Shabbir, 21, said at a protest in eastern Lahore city on Monday (October 21, 2024).
Senior official Syeda Shahrabano Naqvi has been charged with investigating the case, which police say involves unproven online rumors and misinformation.
But she acknowledges that it has made a real impact on the issue of harassment in Pakistan, a patriarchal country where open discussion of abuse is taboo. “We have all experienced this somewhere,” she says.
It started with a flood of social media posts earlier this month alleging that a staff member had raped a woman in the basement of the Punjab College campus in Lahore.
When police and local media were unable to locate the victim, the local government and school administration dismissed the claims as hearsay.
But student protests erupted last Monday (October 21, 2024), leading to unrest in Lahore and other cities over the weekend, leading to the arrest of at least 380 people on charges of vandalism and arson. Educational institutions were closed across Punjab province last Friday (October 18, 2024) – when protests are usually held after prayers – and political gatherings were banned for two days, although authorities Did not give any reason.
But students who have been banned from officially organizing in unions for the past four decades continued to walk out this week.
Fatima Razzaq, a member of the Aurat March women’s rights group, said, “I have never seen it grow into this kind of movement before or this kind of anger or reaction from their side.”
lose trust
The Punjab government has a women-only police emergency line where they report receiving 1,300 calls daily from women concerned about their safety.
But according to the United Nations, 80% of women say they have been harassed in public places, so there is little confidence that authorities will take the matter seriously.
Ms Razzaq said this was resulting in “deep-rooted despair”.
While protesters’ opinions vary regarding the veracity of the rape claims that have sparked the movement, many cite their own experience as more important in their decision. Student Aamna Nazar said, “A girl I knew in my university committed suicide because she was being harassed.”
“My professor asks me repeatedly and calls me to his office,” said another student of Panjab University, on condition of anonymity. “It’s something I don’t want to do.” At the premises where the crime is alleged to have taken place, activists painted walls with red handprints and demanded “justice for the rape victim”. But it was soon painted over.
A female student from another university said, “If we go and complain about an incident, we are told that nothing happened and that we should stop talking about it.”
The Lahore High Court has announced a new committee of judges to probe sexual harassment on the campus, indicating that authorities are acknowledging that the protests have a point.
But standoffs between students and police are coming amid a widespread crackdown on dissent by political and ethnic activists across Pakistan.
Student social media pages and online chat groups created to organize protesters have disappeared and authorities have promised to prosecute those spreading misinformation.
Ms Naqvi said that “people have lost the tendency to trust those in uniform” and the confrontation has turned into “state versus students”. Meanwhile, women whose experiences of oppression have placed them at the center of the movement are finding themselves sidelined as protests often led by men turn to violence.
When a mob of male students pelted stones at police in downtown Rawalpindi last week, officers retaliated with rubber bullets, and women hid in the streets, fearing for their safety.
Nevertheless, Inshai, a 19-year-old student, said: “We stand up for our rights”.
published – October 25, 2024 01:37 PM IST