Three in dock for threatening student
dubai — A Pakistani man, who allegedly harassed a compatriot college student repeatedly and threatened to burn her house unless she went out with him, was charged in absentia earlier this week.
According to public prosecution records, the man disappeared after learning that the CID officers were looking for him following a complaint from the student.
His two compatriot friends, a cleaner and a mechanic, aged 20 and 33, did not attend the hearing in which they were charged in the Court of First Instance with making criminal threats and abusing the telecommunications services to harass the student and threaten her.
The runaway accused got the student’s mobile phone number after he chatted with her brother on WhatsApp pretending to be a girl.
He then spread her number among his friends and they kept calling and texting her to invite her out. They threatened to defame her and her sister by circulating their photos, after altering them, if she did not befriend them and go out with them. They also threatened to burn her car and house down.
The complaint was filed on August 14, 2016 at Al Rafaa police.
The complainant, 22, said the runaway defendant sent her a message on WhatsApp in May, 2016, claiming he was her schoolmate. He then started to call her from different numbers after she blocked him.
“He would send messages that he would expose my dark past in front of my family in case I did not talk to him on the phone and go out with him. He said he would circulate my photos online and threatened me even though I don’t have a dark past.”
She said he would call her around 20 times and send her more than 100 messages a day. “When I eventually talked with one of them he said he wanted to be my boyfriend and that he knew my house and car location. After they threatened to burn my house and car and defame me within my family, I felt very scared so I filed a complaint with the police.”
A police sergeant told the prosecutor the main accused’s two accomplices admitted to having harassed and threatened the student and claimed they had got her number from him.
mary@khaleejtimes.com