Peshawar, Oct 30: A sessions court in Peshawar on Tuesday handed a total of 105 years in prison to a private school’s principal on charges of child abuse, pornography, rape, blackmail and maintaining illicit relations.
The convict, Attaullah Marwat, was also fined Rs1.4 million in addition to the jail terms. The sentences were handed down by Sessions Judge Younis Khan.
The accused, who is the private school’s owner, was arrested after the Hayatabad police station registered a case against him on July 14, 2017, on the complaint of a boy student, who had accused him of sexually exploiting schoolchildren, including girls, and filming them with secret cameras installed on campus.
A trial court had framed charges against him on eight counts under the Pakistan Penal Code, including Section 354-A (stripping a woman of her clothes), 376 (punishment for rape), 377-B (sexual abuse of child), 489-C (counterfeit currency), 497 (adultery) and 509 (sexual harassment), and Sections 48 (child pornography), 50 (seducing a child) and 53 (sexual abuse) of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act, 2010.
He was found guilty of all charges and handed various jail sentences under each section — resulting in a total prison term of 105 years.
As many as 25 direct and indirect victims of Marwat had their statements recorded before police against the convict, however, it is believed that a majority of his victims had not come forward.
One of the charges against the convict was that he had forced, persuaded, coerced and enticed female students under the age of 18 to engage in sexual activities and exposed their bodies, and was involved in explicit sexual conduct and abuse of minor schoolgirls.
Marwat was also charged with forcing, coercing and persuading female students of his school to engage in sexual activities and capturing those acts on his mobile phones and secret cameras installed in different parts of the school and storing them in USBs.
The convict had allegedly “on multiple occasions and habitually” enticed and compelled multiple women of different ages to have illicit relations with him inside the school.
He was also charged with sexually assaulting multiple women after coercing them with death threats.
Following his arrest last year, the accused had recorded his confessional statement before a judicial magistrate on July 19, 2017, wherein he had admitted only that he used to bring women from outside to the school for the purpose of adultery.
He had said it was his “hobby” to make videos of his sexual activities.
He had also admitted that 26 such videos, which he had recorded, were stored in his personal computer.
The issue had surfaced after a student of the said school (name withheld) had told the police that the accused was involved in sexual exploitation of students and teachers.
He had alleged that Marwat had sexually exploited students, teachers and some women from outside the school but nobody had the courage to disclose or report the matter.
The complainant had alleged that the principal had also showed him several objectionable videos, which he had recorded secretly through cameras, and also invited him to get involved in such acts.
In the first information report of the case, the police had said that when they raided the school, the accused tried to conceal his two cell phones, which allegedly had several objectionable videos involving schoolboys.
It added that the accused used three rooms of his school for the illegal activities.
The police had recovered memory cards and USBs and saw several videos showing the principal sexually exploiting students, including girls, in different parts of his school.
