PESHAWAR, Sept 21: An inquiry committee constituted to probe into the allege sexual abuse of the students of Government Higher Secondary School No. 3 has completed its inquiry and will submit its report in the next few days.

Sources privy to the proceedings of the committee confided to Dawn that the statements of various people, including some former teachers of the school, confirmed that the sexual abuse of students by some of the teachers had been going on for over two decades.

Owners of some nearby hotels of the school also confirmed to the committee, comprising parents of students, that students in school uniform accompanied various visitors to their hotels, sources said.

Some former teacher confided to the committee that the gang of three teachers, two clerks and a watchman, was involved in carrying out child-prostitution and for that purpose they sent students outside the school during school timings.

They claimed that first they selected a student and then used various tactics for luring him. Moreover the gang-leader, who is in the school for the past 20 years, passed a number of those failed students who accepted his immoral demands.

It is learnt that the committee, headed by Aurangzeb Khan, is giving final touches to its report and would submit it to the government in the next few days.

“We have finalized the inquiry and have met a number of people so as to determine whether the allegations of sexual abuse of students against some staff members are correct or baseless,” Aurangzeb Khan said.

He conceded that they had recorded statements of some hotel owners, but declined to give details, stating that before submission of the report to the government they could not disclose anything.

Another committee constituted by the education department, whose chairman is an academician, Haleem Shirazi, has also conducted inquiry into the matter and has recorded statements of various people including former principals, teachers and some students.

It is learnt that a former teacher of the school, has confided to one of the committees that some of the principals of the school were aware of the immoral activities, but they turned a blind eye towards the activities.

An official of the school informed that previously a number of complaints were made to the department about the activities, but no serious efforts were made to check them.

“A Khidmat Committee had also probed into the matter and had reached the conclusion that students were sexually abused, but in the meantime the government was dismissed in 1999,” said an official of the school.

The present principal, Ubaidullah Khan, appointed in May last year, imposed restrictions on the presence of teachers and students in the school and in the near by hotels after school timings and during vacations.

However, to pressurise him, the gang managed to publish some news items against him in the local newspapers few months ago charging him of being involved in monetary indiscipline.

The principal claimed that he sustained the pressure and constituted the inquiry committee comprising parents of students on the directives of NWFP Education Minister Fazal Ali.