November 7th, 2020
By Ahmad Saeed
LAHORE
The family of the two sisters allegedly gang-raped in Faisalabad has accused the police of siding with the suspects.
The interim bail of five out of 15 people, who have been accused of abetting in the crime, has been extended by a local court till November 12. The three men, Salman, Adnan, and Danish, who allegedly gang-raped the girls are still at large.
The uncle of the rape survivors has claimed that the police have not made any efforts to arrest the main suspects. The incident happened in September but the girls’ family registered the FIR in October because according to their father the girls were in a deep state of shock and did not want to involve the police.
The accused had threatened the girls that they will finish off their family if any legal proceedings are taken. The girls have appealed to the authorities to give them protection and deliver them justice.
As a result of the report done by Voicepk.net, Federal Minister for Human Rights, Shireen Mazari, took notice of the incident and assured justice would be done.
In an earlier interview, one of the girls had recounted how during the investigation, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Sargodha, Arshad, had behaved so insultingly with her that a sub-inspector, who could no longer bear this humiliation, pleaded with his superior to refrain from asking ridiculous questions from the rape survivors.
“When we told DSP Arshad that the accused took us away in their cars, he demanded to know why we did not struggle. He told us that he thinks we went away with those people of our own accord,” she said. “I told him that the accused had shot videos of me being raped, and then showed them to me, to which he inquired why I watched it. I did not know how to respond to that. Sub-Inspector Musaddiq intervened. He told the DSP that we are little girls and that he should not be asking such questions from us,” she said in the interview.
“After that, the DSP quietened down a bit and then said that if the accused claimed the girls had run off with them of their own accord, he will jail us for seven years. So when the accused serve their sentence and are free, the girls will also be freed around then,” she added.
Station House Officer (SHO) Ali Ahmed, whose police station is where the girls’ case is registered for further investigation, had blamed the girls for the incident and expressed his suspicions that the rape-survivors had willingly accompanied the accused. When told that one of the girls was fourteen according to her valid B-form and that according to provincial laws, sexual acts with any girl under the age of sixteen constitute rape, the SHO had brushed it off, saying he can have such B-Forms made under ten minutes easily. The family had also expressed concern over the police investigation into the case.
