TOBA TEK SINGH: Punjab Ombudsperson Ms Nabila Khan issued a contempt notice on Thursday to the Government College University Faisalabad (GCUF) vice chancellor for denying her access to the university.

In the notice, Ms. Khan said her office, established under the Protection Against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2010, is responsible for ensuring safe and harassment-free workplaces across Punjab.

She added in the notice that it is mandatory as per provision of section 11 of Act for employers, management of all organisations, departments, offices, universities to form inquiry committees to display code of conduct at conspicuous place of workplaces. She said as custodian of this Act, she was empowered to check its implementation in its true letter and spirit.

She said on Thursday she reached GCUF for inspection but gate was not opened despite waiting for 20 minutes. She said the chief security officer and the VC were contacted to inform purpose of her visit but it was not noticed and they humiliated and adopted unprofessional conduct towards the authority of ombudsperson which is not only misconduct but act of obvious contempt which is actionable under the Act read with contempt of court ordinance as section 10 of Act which provides her same powers as high court has to punish any person for contempt.

She directed the VC in the notice to appear before her along with his reply on Nov 5 without fail. She advised him that his failure to comply with directions contained in notice shall entail strict action against him.

ACCIDENT: Two brothers died after a bus hit their motorcycle near Kamalia Sugar mills on Toba-Chichawatni Road on Thursday.

Rescue 1122 said Abdul Jabbar (17) and Muhammad Ali (5), sons of a farmer Mukhtar Ahmad of Chak 268 GB, were on way to a village when a Multan-bound bus hit the bike as a result both were seriously wounded and died instantly. The bus driver managed his escape leaving the vehicle on the road.

ARRESTED: An FIA cybercrime wing team on Thursday arrested from Multan a dozen members of an international gang involved in financial fraud, blackmailing, extortion of money and call spoofing.

A press release said one of the suspects, Jawad, is an Afghan national.

Other gang members were identified as Abdul Majeed, Khalid, Umer Farooq, Muhammad Farooq, Zubair, Zaeem, Imran, Abdul Aziz, Mohsin, Abdul Hameed and Abdul Rashid. They used to call foreign account holders of banks by introducing themselves as bank officials to get information of their accounts.

It added that they were expert in speaking English and Arabic languages and they had their network in Middle East and other countries while this gang members were also doing fake visa processing, prize distribution fraud to lure people.

It said they used fake SIM cards and illegal application of devices to get data of account holders. The team recovered from their custody 14 smart phones, 11 international SIMs, computer tablets, spoofing software and data of international bank accounts. It also claimed that raids were being conducted to arrest their other accomplices.

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2024