RAHIM YAR KHAN:
A harassment case erupted at Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology (KFUEIT) on 21 September 2026, after screenshots and allegations concerning the alleged harassment of a female student by a university lecturer surfaced on social media.
According to the claims and screenshots of the chat circulating online, the student accused the lecturer, Aqeel ur Rahman, of sending inappropriate messages and repeatedly contacting her through WhatsApp, SMS, and phone calls, as well as pressuring her to meet him. The student further alleged that she was offered better marks and grades in exchange for compliance, and threatened with academic consequences if she refused. She has said she retained records of the alleged communications and had already approached the university’s Vice Chancellor by email.
The university said no formal written complaint had been received from any student at the time of its statement, but that the inquiry committee would examine the screenshots, available information, and other relevant records to establish the facts, and that action would follow under applicable rules if a violation is confirmed. There are conflicting reports regarding the nature of the committee, with a few students reporting that the committee’s work is not transparent, and some reports suggesting that no such committee exists at all, with the university administration allegedly actively threatening students, telling them not to protest or post anything on social media.
The story has now been picked up by more than one outlet, and separately, unverified posts naming a specific lecturer have circulated on student-run social media pages in Rahim Yar Khan, including at least one post allegedly claiming he was already cleared after the screenshots were found to be fabricated, contradicted by other posts insisting the opposite.
Given the conflicting and anonymous nature of these claims, they are not included here.
Rahim Yar Khan has seen a string of harassment cases at educational institutions in recent years, feeding recurring criticism that internal university grievance processes are slow-moving and administration-controlled rather than independent.
Speaking to The Students Herald, Secretary General of PSC, Eqbal Khan, said that the pattern reflects a wider problem across Pakistani campuses: harassment complaints routinely stall inside committees dominated by faculty and administration, with few or no student members and little independent oversight. The only solution to this problem, he said, is that anti-harassment committees need mandatory, meaningful student representation, including of female students, and that without restored student unions and real institutional power for students, such committees tend to function as a shield for the institution rather than a path to accountability for the accused.
