Two more victims testify against Karachi school principal accused of raping over 45 women
Sep 13, 2023
Karachi [Pakistan], September 13 : Two women testified before a judicial magistrate against the owner/principal of a private school in Gulshan-i-Hadeed, claiming that he lured them with the promise of employment, raped them, and also recorded the crime in order to blackmail them, Dawn reported.
According to Criminal Procedure Code Section 164 (Power to record statements and confessions by a magistrate), both women recorded their individual statements while the suspect was present.
Additionally, they also identified the suspect as the offender who had repeatedly raped them.
The school's owner was detained by authorities on September 4 after a video went viral on social media. A court ordered that he remain in police custody for a week, according to Dawn.
The investigating officer represented him in court on Tuesday after his remand time was up, and he also filed motions to record the statements of the two witnesses/victims.
Both of the women's statements were recorded by Judicial Magistrate (Malir) Ramsha Navaid, who also gave the suspect and his attorney the chance to cross-examine the witnesses.
The first victim, a 23-year-old woman, testified that the defendant had requested her to come for an interview after school hours after she had visited the alleged school three months earlier in search of a job, as reported by Dawn.
She said that the suspect asked her to sit in his office, locked the door, and forcibly assaulted her. Later, he offered her to join after one week and offered her a salary of Pakistan Rupee (PKR) 25,000.
“The suspect repeated the offence when I visited the school after a week and when I attempted to resist, he slapped me and said that it was recorded in the CCTV camera installed at his office and warned to post the same on internet,” the witness told the magistrate.
The suspect had been blackmailing about 45 victims, according to earlier police reports.
At the Steel Town police station, a case was registered on behalf of the State against the suspect under Sections 376 (penalty of rape), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 509 (insulting modesty or inflicting sexual harassment) of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 25 of the Telegraph Act, Dawn reported.
