Pakistani Police Fire Tear Gas at Protesting Students Amid Anger Over Alleged On-Campus Rape
Pakistani police fired tear gas and charged at student protesters who ransacked a college building on Thursday, as anger spread over an alleged on-campus rape. The protests have been ongoing since reports about the alleged rape in Lahore went viral on social media, leading to demonstrations in four cities.
The unrest began when hundreds of students gathered outside a campus in Rawalpindi, Punjab province. They burned furniture and blocked a key road, disrupting traffic, before ransacking a college building. Police responded by swinging batons and firing tear gas to disperse them, according to police official Mohammad Afzal.
In a statement, police said they arrested 250 people, mostly students, on charges of disrupting the peace. In Gujrat, also in Punjab province, a security guard died in clashes between student protesters and police on Wednesday. The police have arrested someone in connection with the death.
Earlier this week, more than two dozen college students were injured in clashes with police in Lahore after they rallied to demand justice for the victim, who they alleged was raped on campus at the Punjab Group of Colleges. Authorities, including the province’s chief minister and the college administration, denied there was an assault, as did the young woman’s parents.
The ongoing protests appear to have begun spontaneously. Student unions have been banned in Pakistan since 1984. The youth wings of several opposition parties have since expressed support. On Thursday, Usman Ghani, the head of the youth wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami opposition party, demanded an end to the ban on student unions, saying they might have helped resolve the matter without violence.
Sexual violence against women is common in Pakistan but is underreported due to the stigma attached to it in the conservative country. This week’s protests come less than a month after a woman said she was gang-raped while on duty during a polio vaccination drive in southern Sindh province. Police arrested three men, and her husband threw her out of the house after the reported assault, saying she had tarnished the family name.
