KARACHI, Oct 1: About 250 faculty members of the newly-established Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Medical College in Lyari resigned en masse on Saturday citing serious concerns about their security and alleging, among other things, “physical abuse and sexual harassment”, officials said.

They said the “extreme decision” was taken unanimously by the faculty staff of all the 13 departments — seven of basic sciences and six clinical — after most of them experienced almost the same kind of threats, mostly affecting female members, constituting 70 per cent of the faculty.

“The faculty members resigned their positions and explained the reasons for it in a letter to the college authority,” said Dr Anjum Rahman, the college’s vice principal.

“In the entire situation the female staff, over 70 per cent of our faculty, appeared the most vulnerable. They have cited several episodes, including threatening phone calls, a kind of break-in and several attempts, which are definitely unacceptable.”

She said the resigning members included senior professors and the registrar, who were witness to incidents that took place over a year. There was no security measure for the college. Not even a regular police post for that purpose, she added.

“There are definitely people outside the college who are involved in all this,” said Dr Rahman when asked about the people threatening faculty members.

“The female staff members are so scared, and the resignation reflects the level of their frustration and sense of insecurity.”

Officials associated with the college said though the security concerns and threats remained there, the situation turned ugly only a couple of weeks ago when some ‘miscreants’ entered one of the facilities of the college, where a few female members were busy in their regular job.

“Some of them used abusive language and when staff members reacted, they attacked them,” said an official, who was part of the faculty team that resigned. “The matter was reported to the high-ups and the airing of grievances started to build up. We were already worried and desperate when members of other facilities started joining together and we reached a consensus and took the unanimous decision.”

The en masse resignation by the faculty members of the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Medical College came as a surprise to the provincial administration as well as leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party, which claims Lyari to be its stronghold of decades.

A key member of the Sindh cabinet and senior PPP leader even saw the situation as “portrayed more strongly than the reality on the ground” and said the provincial administration was now trying to sort out the matter.

“I don’t rule out any incident or threat to any faculty member of the college. But one can’t declare any isolated incident to be a trend. We have, however, contacted the college administration and every possible security measure is being taken in line with their demand,” Sindh information minister Sharjeel Inam Memon told Dawn.

The security complaint from the college’s faculty also surprised the police authorities, who denied having received “any formal request” from them before they resigned.

“For the last two months, I have received no complaint, nor heard of any such things as are being reported today,” said SSP Naeem Sheikh. “We are bound to make security arrangements in this regard but we need to receive a complaint. And in this case, unfortunately, we were not approached by anyone.”