LAHORE: Former Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) leader Mufti Azizur Rehman, who was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a madressah student, has reportedly confessed to his crime saying that he had trapped his student by offering him to promote him in the exam.

He said the student made mobile phone videos of his crime keeping him absolutely in the dark.

The cleric kept on changing his locations but the police were pursuing him vigorously, quoting the prime suspect a police official told this reporter.

The official said the suspect told the investigators that he got terrified when the video clip appeared on a section of social media and then news channels.

Suspect remanded in police custody for four days

The police had arrested his two sons in separate raids carried out in Lakki Marwat and Kahna area of Lahore and they were nominated in first information report lodged by the student with North Cantt police.

Meanwhile, a judicial magistrate at Cantonment Courts on Monday handed over Mufti Azizur Rehman to Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) police on a four-day physical remand.

North Cantonment police had on June 17 registered the FIR on charges of sexual assault and criminal intimidation against Mufti Rehman on the complaint of Sabir Shah, the student of Jamia Manzoorul Islam, Cantonment.

The cleric went into hiding after the registration of the case as police arrested him in Mianwali on Sunday. The police also arrested his sons Altafur Rehman and Atiqur Rehman and three accomplices on charges of hurling life threats at the complainant.

The police presented the cleric with a covered face before the magistrate and sought his physical remand for seven days.

Magistrate Rana Rashid Ali Khan granted four-day physical remand of the suspect to the CIA with a direction to get his DNA test conducted.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2021