Viral video, Rs3.5m claim and alumni pressure push the varsity to revisit allegations it says remain unproven.
LAHORE: Government College Lahore has formed an inquiry committee with external members to examine harassment and blackmail allegations against an assistant professor of English, after a confrontation at a conference in the city was filmed and spread online.
The committee has been given seven days to report, the institution said, adding that neither the allegations nor the financial claims made against the teacher had been independently established.
Witnesses said three women approached the teacher during a tea break at the Thaap Conference in Lahore on Nov 7. Two of them allegedly struck him while the third recorded the encounter on her phone, and the video went viral. People nearby tried without success to restrain them.
According to the witnesses, the women demanded the return of Rs3.5 million they said he had received from a girl, and referred to an earlier harassment inquiry in which he had reportedly been cleared. They also rejected a social media claim that one of them was the girl’s mother.
The teacher could not be reached for comment. The Lahore Times is not naming him because no finding has been made against him.
In a statement, the administration said the vice chancellor had taken notice of the video of an off-campus incident and the allegations against the faculty member. It said the committee would examine the facts and circumstances, that the inquiry would follow due process, and that anyone found responsible would face action under the law and the institution’s rules.
The university reiterated what it called a zero-tolerance policy on harassment. It did not disclose the committee’s members or its full terms of reference.
The Old Ravians, the body of former students, said allegations of harassment, bullying, blackmail and extortion against the teacher had first surfaced in 2024 and drawn a reaction from students, but had not been pursued transparently.
The group asked why the earlier inquiry had allegedly been hushed up and whether the complainant had been pressured, and demanded justice for the alleged victim along with safe spaces for students and teachers both on and off campus. The institution has not responded publicly to those specific questions.
Harassment complaints at universities fall under the Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act 2010 and the Higher Education Commission’s policy on sexual harassment, which require institutions to maintain inquiry committees. Complainants can also approach the provincial ombudsperson for protection against harassment. Allegations of online blackmail can be reported to the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency, which has made arrests in Lahore cyber-harassment cases this year.
The institution has handled such complaints before. In 2020 a fact-finding committee found a physics teacher guilty of harassing a female student, relieved him of duties and referred the case to the university’s anti-harassment committee, after other students came forward once the probe was announced.
The committee’s report is due within a week. Its findings will be tested on two fronts: whether the allegations against the teacher are substantiated, and whether the handling of the 2024 complaint answers the alumni’s questions.
The video also raises the separate matter of the alleged assault itself, on which no police case had been reported as of Wednesday.
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