SUKKUR: Khairpur police on Friday arrested a teacher on the charges of abusing his students, filming the episodes and blackmailing them after some of the video clips went viral on the social media.

The suspect was lodged in the lock-up of the Thari Mirwah police station and four FIRs were registered against him.

According to Muneer Jumani, the public relations officer of the Khairpur SSP, the suspect was a retired schoolteacher and currently running a private tuition centre, where several students had been subjected to criminal assault at gunpoint. He said some of the students narrated their ordeal to the police after he was picked up on the basis of the videos and airing of the news report by some private TV channels.

Meanwhile, the IG has announced a cash reward of Rs200,000 for the police team that tracked down the suspect and arrested him.

He said the suspect had been blackmailing the children by threatening them to upload the videos on the social media. The police said that the suspect was wanted in a number of criminal cases including highway robbery and vehicle snatching. He was picked up in Ranipur on Friday by a police team comprising officers and personnel drawn from various police stations of the district, the PRO said.

SSP Ameer Saud Magsi said parents of many students had approached him for the suspect’s arrest after the videos went viral.

He said Inspector General of Police Mushtaq Ahmed Mahar was personally supervising the investigation into the cases of child abuse, blackmailing and criminal activities registered against the suspect.

Attack on trader condemned

The Sukkur Chamber of Commerce and Industry has strongly condemned an attack on the life of one of its members, Manak Mal, by unknown assailants and demanded protection to the traders’ community.

In a statement issued here on Friday, the chamber’s president Malik Mohammad Rizwan-ul-Haq, secretary general Asif Mehmood Malik and other office-bearers as well as members of the executive committee said that the community was already going through a difficult period due to the lockdown on account of the Covid-19 outbreak and suffering heavy losses and deteriorating law and order was adding to their miseries.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2020