ISLAMABAD: The management of the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) is probing into another case of sexual harassment against a faculty member.

The case has come to light a day before the Senate is scheduled to take up an amendment to the ‘law for the protection of women against sexual harassment at workplace’ seeking its extension to educational institutions.

According to sources in the university, since November 2013 a three-member committee has been holding an inquiry against Prof Waheed Iqbal Chaudhry of the anthropology department on the complaint of one of his former female students. However, the committee is yet to record the statements of the complainant and the accused.

Prof Waheed, who is the president of the QAU Academic Staff Association, claimed that a seven-year-old case had been reopened to victimise him.

The sources said the committee had been directed by the vice chancellor to hold the inquiry on the complaint of the former student. In November, she filed an application with the VC office seeking the inquiry on her complaint which she had submitted in 2006 when she was doing MSc at the QAU. She stated that Dr Waheed was her supervisor in 2006 and during the scrutiny of her thesis he tried to molest her.“The committee headed by Qaiser Mushtaq has already started the inquiry,” said a QAU official, adding Dr Hasnain and Dr Saeeda Asadullah were the members of the committee.

The vice chancellor, Dr Masoom Yasinzai, told Dawn that he had referred the case to the harassment committee with the instruction that the student should get justice if her complaint was genuine. “I show zero tolerance regarding cases of sexual harassment.”

When contacted, Dr Waheed Iqbal recalled that the complainant had completed her graduation from the US and started working on her thesis under his supervision.

“She completed the thesis but it was not up to the mark, so I told her to improve it. However, she started pressuring me and even threatened me to use the media against me. I asked her to change the supervisor because I could not approve the thesis,” he said.

But instead of accepting the offer, added Dr Waheed, “she started labelling allegations against me that I had tried to harass her. Later, she disappeared and her thesis was not approved.”

He said after he became the president of Academic Staff Association, the management had been trying to pressure him. “I will continue working for the welfare of the faculty members and am ready to face all the allegations because I am not guilty,” he said.

It may be noted that a senior QAU official was removed from service on the recommendations of the inquiry committee a few years back.

In 2011, the QAU became the first institution to receive an application from a female student after the passage of the Protection of Women against Harassment at Workplace law by parliament in 2010.

The university syndicate on the recommendations of the inquiry committee removed the senior university official but he was later reinstated when his punishment was set aside by the then president Asif Ali Zardari.

In his appeal to the president, the official pleaded that the law under which he had been removed was not applicable to the university since the institution did not fall under the category of workplaces.

While setting aside the punishment, Mr Zardari termed the law “incomplete and faulty.”

In order to remove this lacuna, PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar submitted an amendment seeking extension of the law to colleges and universities. The bill is on the agenda of the Senate which is meeting on Monday.