Cleric charged with sexual abuse evades arrest: police

LAHORE: A cleric who was charged with sexually abusing a student at a religious school in Lahore has escaped and the police are working on tracing the suspect, a spokesperson for Lahore police said Saturday.

The first information report was registered against Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl leader Mufti Azizur Rehman on Thursday after cellphone videos purporting to show the cleric forcing himself on the student went viral on social media.

Arif Rana offered no details on how the cleric escaped but said that several raids were conducted in different parts of the city to arrest him and his sons.

"His mobile phone was showing different locations within Lahore, but he was not present at any," Rana was quoted as saying by a local media outlet.

The case has caused a stir, and outrage on social media, with many calling for a strict punishment for the cleric.

Aziz denied the accusation of sexual abuse in a video statement issued on social media, saying that he was drugged before the filming of the alleged abuse. He said this was part of a plot to throw him out of the seminary -- the Jamia Manzoorul Islamia.

The student, who police said appeared to be in his early 20s, said in his complaint that he has given several video and audio recordings to help police investigate, adding he had gone into hiding because he had received death threats.

The police said the student had told them that the cleric had been abusing him for several years. He said he started filming the abuse after he got sick of it, and sent the video clips of the abuse to the head of the Wifaqul Madaris, the body that oversees the religious schools system.

Aziz, who is in his 60s and is an active member of Maulana Fazlur Rehman's faction of the JUI, has worked as a custodian of the seminary for several years.

The seminary said the cleric has been expelled from his position, and Wifaqul Madaris said it has stripped him of his title, Mufti, which means a religious scholar.