Javed Iqbal denies involvement in scandal over alleged use of CCTV footage to extort money from students in Balochistan

The vice-chancellor of a university in the volatile region of Balochistan in Pakistan has temporarily stepped down from his role following the launch of an investigation into allegations of harassment and blackmail on campus.

Javed Iqbal said on Sunday that he was leaving his post at the University of Balochistan until the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) concluded its inquiry into claims that CCTV footage of students was used by university officials to blackmail them. Most of the students allegedly affected were female.

Iqbal refuted the allegations, telling the Guardian: “I have no involvement in this scandal.” Elsewhere, he has claimed the “allegations are based on lies”.

News of the FIA investigation has sparked a wave of protests across the country.

Hundreds of students have taken to the streets, including in the capital, Islamabad, and organised sit-ins at universities across the country.

It is alleged that footage showing male and female students mingling – from CCTV cameras installed around campus for security reasons – had been used by university staff to extort money and sexually harass female students. If they didn’t comply, it’s claimed that students were told the footage would be sent to their families.

Sharing borders with Iran and Afghanistan, Balochistan is the largest and least developed province of Pakistan. It is deeply conservative and it would be deemed “dishonourable” for a woman and man to be seen together unless they were married or with family members. The female literacy rate for the province is 24%, while the rate among males is 56%. Many fear that the university scandal will deter girls from entering higher education.

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According to local media reports, the FIA has been investigating the claims for a couple of weeks and has interviewed dozens of university officials.

“We have traced 12 videos of harassment of female students,” a senior FIA officer, who declined to be named, told Dawn News TV. The report quoted the official as saying: “Most of the victims in the case are female students who were harassed by some officials of the university’s administration.”

The student protests sparked by the investigation are unprecedented at a university where political activism is banned due to insurgency in the region. The university campus is used as a base by the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force deployed in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to help keep order and patrol the border areas with Afghanistan and Iran. Soldiers are active on campus and students have to undergo security checks when they enter their hostel accommodation.

Harassment is understood to have been occurring on campus for more than four years, and only came to light as a result of an investigation into an unrelated matter at the university.

Talking to the Guardian, student Sadia Baloch said: “Most of the female students residing in the university’s hostels have already left for home, as parents asked them to come back.”

She added: “We live in a tribal society and no girl would ever come forward to report harassment for fear of being killed in the name of honour. The harassers have used this fact to harass and blackmail girls when found mingling with male students, and threatened to send the compromising video footage to their families.”

On the request of anonymity, a female Masters student at the university said: “Last year, my class fellow left the university when she was continuously harassed by professors and administration officials, as she could neither report it nor share it with her parents. This harassment has been going on for over four years.”

Another female masters student said: “I have been harassed by a teacher and he asked me to date him to get good marks. We are harassed on a daily basis by teachers and administration officials. If we share it with [our] families, they would not let us continue our studies.

“It is very disappointing that this harassment is institutionalised. We feel like we live in a war zone amid soldiers, not a university.”

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) expressed concern about the allegations, and on a recent fact-finding mission found “an alarming level of surveillance on campus at the university”.

“While this is in place ostensibly for reasons of security, the recent allegations show how easy it is for surveillance to become a tool of harassment, most often at women’s expense. HRCP’s sources claim that the surveillance system is used as a means of moral policing as well as to disrupt any potential or suspected political activism among students, allegedly at the behest of the Frontier Corps personnel who are permanently deployed at the university.

“HRCP supports those students who have called this a gross violation of their privacy and a means of coercion, and welcomes the Balochistan high court’s decision to take notice of the matter. The Commission also urges the university administration to identify and penalise the perpetrators.”

The FIA said it would submit its findings to Balochistan high court on 29 October.