Attock man allegedly rapes daughter
A resident of Sheen Bagh in Attock, Punjab, reportedly raped his teen daughter on Wednesday.
In her statement to the police, the rape survivor stated that the incident occured when her mother and four siblings were not at home. She was rescued by her mother when she heard her screams.
A medico legal examination confirmed assault and a case has been registered against the girl’s father, who is currently at large.
Man murders daughter for free-will marriage
A 25-year-old woman identified as Aasia was shot dead by her father for ‘honour’ in Faisalabad’s Jaranwala tehsil, Wednesday evening.
According to the victim’s mother-in-law Zarina, a resident of Chak 568-GB, her son Abdul Rehman and Aasia married of their free will a year-and-a-half ago. The couple had a three-month-old daughter together.
Zarina stated that she and her daughter-in-law had gone to visit Abdul Rehman, who was in court for a narcotics case, and were waiting at a bus stop on their way back when Aasia’s father, Muhammad Amin Mughal, arrived and opened fire on the young woman, killing her. The body was shifted to Jaranwala tehsil headquarters (THQ) hospital for a postmortem examination.
Meanwhile, police are conducting raids to apprehend the suspect.
CPJ calls for release of arrested journalists
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international non-profit for press freedom and protection of the rights of journalists, called on the Pakistani authorities for the immediate and unconditional release of journalist Jameel Farooqui, and ceasing all harassment against him and journalist Ilyas Samoo.
CPJ prgramme director Carlos Martinez de la Serna urged the Pakistani authorities to end their “campaign of harassment and intimidation of journalists in retaliation for their work”, and allow Farooqui and Samoo to continue their work without interference.
On August 19, police arrested Samoo, a reporter for the daily Awami Awaz and president of the Bandar Press Club, in a case registered under the Sindh Arms Act. According to the journalist’s brother, Latafullah Samoo, his brother received threatening calls and texts warning him to stop reporting on flood-affected areas in Thatta’s prior to his arrest. His reporting indicated a lackluster response by the authorities toward the flood situation.
While Samoo is currently out on bail since Wednesday, he faces a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison if convicted.
Separately, authorities on August 22 apprehended Farooqui, a YouTuber and an anchor for BOL News, from the Karachi airport in relation to a case lodged against him in Islamabad. The first information report (FIR) charged him with three counts of defamation and one of obstructing the work of a public servant. The anchor had, on August 18, uploaded a video to his YouTube channel in which he claimed that former Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Political Communication and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Dr. Shahbaz Gill had been sexually abused by the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) police while in custody.
In a video posted to Twitter by the PTI’s official twitter handle on the same day as his arrest, Farooqui alleged that the police had stripped and beaten him in custody. A Karachi court transferred his custody to the ICT police. On August 23, an Islamabad court granted police two days additional remand of Farooqui.