LAHORE: A cleric who was charged with sexually abusing a student at a religious school in Lahore has been arrested, Punjab police chief Inam Ghani announced Sunday.
His arrest by the Crime Investigation Agency comes a day after Lahore police spokesperson Arif Rana told media that Mufti Azizur Rehman, an active member of Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s faction of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, has escaped and the police were working on tracing him.
“We will take it as a test case, interrogate him, conduct scientific professional investigation, prosecute and get him convicted by the court,” Ghani tweeted.
We have been able to arrest this criminal. We will take it as a test case, interrogate him, conduct scientific professional investigation, prosecute and get him convicted by the court. We want our kids protected from these child molesters and keep our society safe for our future. pic.twitter.com/W8frA3irKC
— Inam Ghani QPM & Bar, PSP (@InamGhani) June 20, 2021
“We want our kids protected from these child molesters and keep our society safe for our future.”
Later, the CIA also claimed the arrest of Rehman’s two sons, Altafur Rehman and Atiqur Rehman, on charges of threatening the victim of dire consequences for filing a case against their father. Both of them have been booked for criminal intimidation.
The first information report was registered against the cleric on Thursday after cellphone videos purporting to show the cleric forcing himself on the student went viral on social media.
The case has caused a stir, and outrage on social media, with many calling for a strict punishment for the cleric.
Aziz denied the accusation of sexual abuse in a video statement issued on social media, saying that he was drugged before the filming of the alleged abuse. He said this was part of a plot to throw him out of the seminary — the Jamia Manzoorul Islamia.
The student, who police said appeared to be in his early 20s, said in his complaint that he has given several video and audio recordings to help police investigate, adding he had gone into hiding because he had received death threats.
The police said the student had told them that the cleric had been abusing him for several years. He said he started filming the abuse after he got sick of it, and sent the video clips of the abuse to the head of the Wifaqul Madaris, the body that oversees the religious schools system.
Aziz, who is in his 60s, has worked as a custodian of the seminary for several years.
The seminary said the cleric has been expelled from his position, and Wifaqul Madaris said it has stripped him of his title, Mufti, which means a religious scholar.
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