Lahore police have arrested Mufti Azizur Rehman, who has been accused of sexually abusing his seminary student, from Mianwali on Sunday, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.
The police have also arrested Mufti Azizur Rehman's two sons from Lahore and Lakki Marwat.
A case has been registered by the Lahore police against Mufti Azizur Rehman, his sons and two unidentified persons.
A team of the Lahore Police arrested Mufti Azizur Rehman in a late-night raid in Mianwali.
The 70-year-old religious cleric and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam’s deputy ameer in Lahore is now in police lock-up after an FIR was lodged against him for sexually assaulting one of his seminary pupils.
Lahore Police said that Mufti’s student Sabir Shah lodged an FIR in North Cantt Police Station in which he claimed his teacher blackmailed him after he failed in one of his examinations and demanded sexual favours in return.
The video went viral on social media and was widely condemned with people demanding immediate action.
Teary-eyed Sabir Shah in the video said that his life was in danger as Mufti Aziz’s sons threatened to kill him for exposing Mufti Aziz. JUI-F has also suspended the membership of Mufti Aziz.
The case has been registered at the North Cantt police station on the complaint of the student under Section 377 (unnatural offences) and Section 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The victim said that during the exams, Mufti Rehman had accused him and another student of cheating by getting someone else to sit for the exams. “Over this, I was also banned from giving exams at the Wafaqul Madaris for three years,” he said in the complaint.
Also, the victim said he complained to the madrassah’s administration but they refused to believe him as Mufti Rehman was an “elder and a pious man”.
Mufti Rehman had denied the accusation of sexual abuse in a video statement and claimed that he was drugged by his student before he was filmed. “In fact, the boy gave me sedatives in my tea and after that I was not in my senses,” he had said. “The biggest proof is that my body was not even moving. If I were in my senses, how could I have not known that he was making a video from his phone?”
The cleric had claimed that the videos were a conspiracy to remove him from Jamia Manzoorul Islamia, Lahore.
He was terminated by his madrassa and his party, the JUI-F, suspended his party membership after the videos went viral.
Reporter Fahad Bhatti