LAHORE: Mufti Azizur Rehman raped his madrassa student every week for three years, a police challan submitted in a Lahore sessions court revealed Monday.
Earlier this year, the cleric was arrested on charges of harassing and raping a student after a video of the crime went viral on social media.
At a hearing Monday, the police told the court that the investigation has been completed and the case challan prepared. It found Rehman and three of his sons guilty.
“Mufti Aziz-ur-Rehman’s sons forced the complainant to stay quiet when he tried to complain to the madrassa management. They even threatened to kill him,” the challan stated.
Consequently, in a bid to collect evidence against the sexual harassment, the student secretly started filming the cleric and recorded their conversations as well.
“The sofas and curtains in the video are exactly the same as the ones in the cleric’s room,” the police said, adding that after the clips went viral, Rehman was kicked out of the Jamia Manzoorul Islamia, Lahore.
The video and audio evidence were presented in court as well.
Judicial Magistrate Rana Rashid has passed directives to begin the case trial and present nine witnesses in court. The hearing has been adjourned.
On Saturday, the cleric approached the court again for bail in the case. The application stated that the viral video was fabricated.
Earlier, a report by the Punjab Forensics Department proved the authenticity of the clip after Rehman requested a review.
On June 16, the cleric was booked for sodomy after videos showing him forcing himself on a student went viral.
The student filed an FIR at Lahore’s North Cantt Police Station.
The complainant said that during the exam of level four, Mufti Aziz, who was the invigilator, accused him and another guy of putting someone else in their place for the exam. The cleric had him barred from appearing in the Wifaqul Madaris exam for three years.
The student said Mufti Aziz used it to blackmail him into having sexual relations. “So, out of compulsion, I came into his deceit and became a victim. He also promised me that he would have my ban removed and get me to pass the Wifaqul Madaris exam.”
He said he was sexually harassed and blackmailed every Friday for three years. When he went to the madrassa administration, they refused to believe him citing that the mufti was a pious man and accused the victim of lying.
The student thus started secretly filming to collect evidence which he presented to Wifaqul Madari Nazim-e-Aala Hanif Jalandhary. “When Mufti Aziz came to know about this, he threatened to kill me,” the young man told the police. “A few days ago, when someone uploaded the video on social media, I got scared and went into hiding.”
Mufti Aziz had denied the accusation of sexual abuse in a video statement and claimed that he was drugged by his student before he was filmed.
The cleric had claimed that the videos were a conspiracy to remove him from Jamia Manzoorul Islamia, Lahore.
