Pakistan college says alleged rape that sparked protests didn’t happen

Policemen stand guard beside torched vehicles during a demonstration to condemn the alleged rape of a female student in Lahore on October 16, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Senior directors of a Pakistan college said on Wednesday there was no evidence that a student had been raped on campus after reports that spread online sparked days of protests.

Hundreds of students have protested since Monday in response to social media posts that said a woman was raped in the basement of a Punjab College for Women campus in the eastern city of Lahore.

The demonstrators, who were mostly male students, smashed windows and burned school buses.

The protests reflect growing concern over safety, harassment and sexual violence in Pakistan.

“The incident does not exist. I will resign and I will leave this profession and stand with the students if the incident took place,” Arif Chaudry, the Lahore director of the private Punjab Group of Colleges that runs the women’s college, told reporters.

Agha Tahir Ijaz, another of the group’s directors, told the same news conference: “We want the kids to understand that they should not believe misinformation.”

Police arrested a security guard who was identified in online posts but said no victim had come forward and that they had not been able to verify the incident.

The protests first erupted at two of the college’s campuses on Monday afternoon before spreading to several other colleges around the city and continued on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The college campus where the alleged rape was said to happen has been shut down by the provincial Punjab government until further notice.

The chief minister of the province, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, said that those who spread the false posts would be punished.