Jan 9, 2025
By Umer Bacha
SHANGLA
Police in Shangla have arrested two suspects accused of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old boy. However, securing convictions in such cases remains a significant challenge in the conservative district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Of the eight sexual abuse cases reported in the district last year, most suspects avoided punishment through either flawed police investigations or out-of-court settlements with victims’ families. The boy was sexually assaulted by neighboring youths in the Dehrai area of Shangla district. The First Information Report (FIR) filed by the victim at the Alpuri police station states that he was returning home from his aunt’s house when suspects Naseeb-ur-Rehman and Azan Ahmed, who were present in the neighboring shop, called him into the shop and sexually assaulted him.
According to the police, the victim had also stated in the report that the suspects made a video of him while molesting him and threatened him not to tell anyone about the incident. “The police arrested both suspects and charged them with the offences under sections 376 (rape), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 34 (acts done by several persons In furtherance of common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code and sections 48 (punishment for child pornography) and 53 (sexual abuse) of the Child Protect Act,” Zahid Khan, Superintendent of Police Investigation, told Voicepk.net. The rape survivor told police that both suspects filmed the abuse and subsequently, a mobile handset was also seized from them which was used to record the abuse, he said. As one of the suspects was a juvenile as per his birth certificate, the complainant’s family has moved an application to verify the suspect’s age through medical examination. “A medical board has been constituted and we have written to the board to examine the suspect and verify his age,” Khan said.
Police said the suspects confessed to committing sexual assault as well as recording their act on the mobile phone during the police investigation. “Police found the video in the mobile handset but the video has to be forensically examined by the Federal Investigation Agency’s cybercrime wing to be accepted as evidence in court,” Khan explained.
In 2024, eight cases were registered under the Child Protection Act in Shangla district but the accused in most of the cases were acquitted either due to flawed police investigation or reaching a compromise with the victim’s family.
Shangla District Bar Association President Waqif Shah Advocate said that securing convictions in sexual abuse cases remained challenging across the country. Such incidents come to light every day, but no one reports them due to the stigma in society, which encourages sexual abusers. “The law specifically forbids compromise or settlement in sexual abuse cases but when the victim’s family compromises with the accused abuser this leads to weakening of the case in court,” he explained. He said the conviction rate for sexual crimes in Shangla and the rest of the country was even less than five percent. “The judge can do nothing as the case investigation file depicts nothing substantial in terms of investigations, evidence, and witnesses that could lead to a conviction,” he added. If the survivor or witnesses to sexual abuse retract their accusations in court, the judge has no option except to acquit the accused in the case, Shah pointed out.
The police have arrested both the accused in the Shangla Dehrai incident and have also submitted a challan to the court, while the accused have also confessed to the crime in the initial investigation and the police have recovered the mobile and sent the video to the Peshawar lab for verification. Another challenge for police arises when the victim and the alleged abusers are both juveniles. Khan advised parents to keep a close watch on their children to prevent incidents of sexual exploitation.
Police and lawyers say that due to the lack of an FIA police station in Malakand division including Shangla, citizens and the police are facing difficulties in reporting and investigating cybercrime incidents.
According to Sahil’s Six Months Cruel Numbers data report, a total of 1,630 cases of child abuse were reported from across the country in the first six months of last year. In the half-yearly period of 2024, 862 cases of child sexual abuse, 668 cases of abduction, 82 cases of missing children and 18 cases of child marriages were reported. The data revealed that 48 cases of pornography after sexual abuse were also recorded. Six-monthly data shows that out of the total reported cases, (962) 59pc of victims were girls and (668) 41pc were boys.
The data shows that the most vulnerable age group remains children aged 6-15 years, with 693 cases reported in this bracket. Additionally, 94 cases involved children aged 0-5 years, 231 children were from the age bracket of 16-18 years, and in 612 cases, the age of the victims was not mentioned. The child abusers involved in 47pc of the total cases were acquaintances, 18pc were strangers, while in 9pc acquaintances along with strangers committed crimes against children.
In the first six months of 2024, 78pc of the total cases were reported from Punjab and 6pc from the ICT. The remaining cases were reported from other provinces including 11pc cases from Sindh, 3pc cases from KP, and 2pc cases from Balochistan, AJK and GB.