‘Murder’ of teenage boy sparks protest

Family demands registration of sexual assault case against victim’s co-workers

KASUR:

The family of a teenage boy, who was found dead in Chowk Steel Bagh area after remaining missing for five days, alleged on Sunday that he was murdered after being sexually assaulted.

The family protested against the killing by placing the body on Ferozepur Road.

According to the police report, the 15-year-old son of Mustafa, a resident of Pirwala, Kasur, went to a poultry farm in Raukhanwala area for work.

Reportedly, five days had passed and the boy had not returned home. On Friday, the boy’s parents got a call that their son had committed suicide by hanging himself in a room.

When the victim’s relatives arrived at the scene, they saw signs of torture on the body.

They submitted an application for action against seven suspects including the victim’s colleagues named Abid, Shakir, Ashraf Mohammad Shoaib and Mohammad Aslam.

The police registered a case against the suspects on murder and other charges.

However, the family placed the body at Steel Bagh Chowk and blocked Ferozepur Road for traffic.

They also chanted slogans against the police and demanded that the charge of sexual abuse be included in the case against the suspects and that justice be served.

Police said the section of the law pertaining to sexual abuse would be added when the complete report was received and the allegation was medically proved. However, all the suspects were arrested and were being interrogated. After four hours, the protesters were asked to disperse on police’s assurance of justice.

Incidents of murder-cum-rape are not uncommon across the province.

On January 27, a woman was reportedly murdered after sexual assault during a robbery in Shahdara area of the provincial metropolis.

The unidentified suspected robbers barged into the house in Lalazar Colony. The victim had been living in the house with her husband Umar Baig, mother-in-law and children.

On the day of the incident, Umar and the children visited a market to buy items for the birthday party of a child. When they returned, they found the victim in a pool of blood on a bed, while gold ornaments and cash were missing from the house.

On January 8, a differently-abled person was allegedly was gang-raped in the fields near Maulana Shaukat Ali Road. The victim Moazam Pervaiz in his complaint before police reported that he worked at a superstore.

He took a motorcycle-rickshaw near Chowk Yateem Khana. The driver and another person were riding it. As they reached near Muslim Town, another person boarded the rickshaw. When he tried to get off the rickshaw, a suspect threatened him against leaving. He asked the complainant to go with them, threatening to hand him over to the police.

They took him to fields near Shaukat Ali Road and subjected him to gang-rape. The suspects also snatched Rs10,000, which the victim had received as salary.

On November 28 last year, a 10-year-old girl was abducted, raped and murdered on the outskirts of Harappa.

On November 17 last year, an influential landlord had allegedly raped and murdered a minor girl in Sargodha.

(THE VICTIMS’ IDENTITIES HAVE NOT BEEN DISCLOSED AS A MATTER OF POLICY)

 

 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th, 2021.