Sexual assault: Girl kidnapped, sold and gang raped for 15 days

Asiya says her refusal to marry her ‘buyer’ resulted in torture.

KHANEWAL:

A young girl was abducted and gang raped after she refused to marry the man she was sold to.

According to police officials, Khanewal tehsil Jahanian Teen Marla Scheme resident Asiya Bibi was abducted by her neighbour Sajid and his accomplice Riaz Alvi. “They took me from my home nearly three weeks ago.

I was asleep and they gagged me. They kept me in a dark room for several hours before selling me off,” Asiya told reporters.

According to police officials, Asiya was later sold for Rs300,000 to Abid Majeed. “He kept me locked up in the basement and he and his men raped me for 15 days. They kept insisting I sign some documents but I refused and then he said that I would have to submit to him whether or not I agreed to marry him,” she said. “He beat me and used soldering irons to mark my body because I kept refusing him,” she added.

Asiya said that Abid’s house was in Jahanian. “I was brought there in a truck and I was blindfolded,” she said. Asiya told reporters that she fled Abid’s house three days ago and reached her village, where a panchyat headed by Rao Muhammad Abrar and Rao Shahid Iqbal declared the accused Sajid, Riaz and Abid guilty.

“Then I approached police but they refused to register a case even after I produced a medical certificate proving I had been raped,” she said, adding “they haven’t caught my kidnappers. They took Abid into custody but released him a day later.”

The panchayat also imposed a fine of Rs100,000 on the accused and demanded that they leave the area. Asiya’s sister Zarina filed an application with the court and the court has ordered police officials to register a case. Jahanian police officials said that they had registered a case after a medical report but the accused had not been arrested. “We took Abid in for questioning but he denied the charges. He said that he was not even in the district at the time of the incident and we have verified his statements. That is why we let him go,” inspector Basit Shakeel said.

All names have been changed to protect the victim’s identity

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2011.