PESHAWAR: A sessions court on Tuesday handed a 105-year imprisonment to the principal of a private school on charges of child abuse, pornography, rape, blackmail and maintaining illicit relations.
Sessions Judge Younis Khan handed down the sentence along with a fine of Rs1.4 million.
The convict, Attaullah Marwat, who is also the owner of the private school, 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 as well as 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.
He was also charged with sexually assaulting multiple women after coercing them with death threats.
Following his arrest in 2017, 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 and admitted that 26 such videos were stored on his personal computer.
