Karachi University’s professor jailed, fined for harassing female colleague on social media

Tariq Butt, Correspondent

A court has sentenced a male teacher of the Karachi University (KU) to three years in prison for harassing a female colleague on a social media website.

Dr Farhan Kamrani, an assistant professor at KU’s Department of Psychology, was found guilty of harassing a female teacher by creating a fake Facebook account in her name.

District and Sessions Judge (East) Khalid Hussain Shahani also fined the convict Rs1.1 million. Failure to pay it would result in additional imprisonment. Pronouncing the verdict, the judge cancelled the bail granted to the accused, following which he was arrested from the courtroom and remanded to jail to serve his sentence.

The female teacher had lodged a complaint with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in 2016, saying that someone had posted a link of a profile on the page of the Greenwich University containing her fake pornographic pictures.

According to special public prosecutor Zakir Hussain, the FIA sought the social media website’s help and traced the accused to his residence, as well as found evidence on his laptop that the Facebook account in question had been used on this computer.

Defence counsel Ahsanullah Khan, however, objected to the charge saying that the prosecution story carried loopholes because the laptop was neither sent for a forensic analysis nor presented in the court as evidence. He claimed that his client was falsely implicated in the case.

Concluding the trial, the judge said that the prosecution had successfully established its case against the accused, while he, on the other hand, had failed to prove his innocence.

The court awarded three years’ imprisonment to the accused for committing an offence punishable under Section 21 (offences against modesty of a natural person and minor) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act.

The court awarded another three years’ term to him for an offence punishable under Section 419 (punishment for cheating by personation) and two years’ term for an offence punishable under Section 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Pakistan Penal Code.