An associate professor at Punjab University is facing complaints from families living in the university’s staff hostel, who have accused him of allegedly harassing children living there. The complaints, which have been raised with the university administration, centre on Dr. Javed Akhtar, an associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and they include an incident said to have been caught on CCTV involving a seven-year-old boy. The families say the matter has been pending for months, and their concern is growing because the children involved live in the same residential colony as the professor.
According to reports, CCTV footage of one incident shows Dr. Akhtar stopping a seven-year-old boy who was riding a bicycle and then kicking the bicycle. A female resident has also accused the professor of repeatedly harassing young girls living in the hostel. Several hostel residents have approached the university administration about his alleged behaviour over a period of time, rather than in a single incident. The families living in the residential hostels are worried about the safety of their children, and that worry has only increased as the months have passed without what they see as firm action.
The university’s House Allotment Committee, which deals with matters relating to the residential colony, has reportedly known about the allegations for around six months. Despite that, the committee has so far only issued a show-cause notice to the professor, asking him to explain his position, and has not taken stricter action. The delay has frustrated the complainants and raised questions about how seriously the university is treating complaints involving children’s safety.
According to reports, the committee is allegedly holding back from further action because a senior official of the Higher Education Commission is said to be supporting Dr. Akhtar. That claim is unconfirmed, and it is one of the matters a proper inquiry would need to examine. What is clear is that the families involved feel the process has stalled, and they are now looking to the university to act. Dr. Akhtar and the university’s House Allotment Committee have yet to respond to the allegations, according to the latest reports, and no statement has been issued on their behalf.
The case, as reported, sits squarely within the framework Pakistan has built for dealing with harassment complaints in educational institutions. The Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act of 2010 requires every organisation, expressly including educational institutes, to adopt a code of conduct and to set up a three-member inquiry committee, with at least one woman among its members. Once a written complaint is received, the committee must send the charges to the accused within three days and complete its inquiry within 30 days. The committee can recommend penalties ranging from censure and the withholding of promotion to demotion, compulsory retirement or dismissal, depending on what the inquiry finds.
The Higher Education Commission added its own binding policy for universities in 2020, requiring every higher education institution to name at least two focal persons, at least one of them a woman, and to constitute an inquiry committee to handle complaints. The policy encourages complaints to be made promptly, preferably within three months and no later than twelve months from the last alleged incident, and a complaint received must be shared with the focal persons and committee members within 24 hours. In August 2023, the Governor of Punjab directed vice chancellors of public and private universities to make their inquiry committees proactive, complete inquiries within 45 days and appoint a senior female faculty member as focal person. Punjab University itself revised its inquiry committee under the HEC policy in August 2023, so the machinery for dealing with such complaints is in place on paper.
The university has dealt with a serious harassment case before. In April 2011, a senior professor at Punjab University’s College of Earth and Environmental Sciences was dismissed after an inquiry commission found him guilty of sexually harassing a PhD student and an administrator. The dismissal was publicly welcomed as a sign that the law would be applied even to senior faculty. That history makes the present delay harder for the complainants to accept, since they have been waiting for around six months and have so far seen only a show-cause notice.
A show-cause notice is a normal early step in such a process, since the accused must be given the charges and a chance to reply before an inquiry can proceed. But it is only a first step, and the law expects the inquiry itself to move quickly once a complaint is made. The families in the hostel are asking for that inquiry to happen, and for the university to decide the matter on its merits rather than letting it drift. Until a proper inquiry reports, the allegations remain unproven, and Dr. Akhtar is entitled to be treated as innocent of them. What the families want, above all, is a process they can trust, one that reaches a clear decision and makes the residential colony safe for their children again.
