Investigations unfurl: Complainant confesses raping Hyd woman

Police found her ‘nephew’ suspicious after viewing CCTV footage

KARACHI: Investigations into the gang rape of a Hyderabad woman at a Karachi hospital took an unexpected turn on Saturday when the complainant confessed to the crime.

Saddam Hussain, who claimed to be a nephew of rape survivor H*, had gone to Eidgah police on Friday and filed a case against six unidentified men working at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) for allegedly gang raping the 24-year-old woman inside hospital premises.

On Saturday, the police decided to question him as well after they found discrepancies in his statements. By evening, Hussain confessed to raping H, who turned out to be a distant relative of his, Investigations SP Abid Qaimkhani told The Express Tribune. Hussain took her to an apartment in Gizri area, where he raped her. He then took her to SIUT for a follow-up check-up as per their original plan, he said.

When H appeared to be in a state of shock, Hussain decided to accuse the SIUT staff and blackmail them in the process, shared the officer. Qaimkhani said that H also narrated the same story when she recorded her statement with the women police.

Earlier, Hussain had told the police that H was gang raped by six doctors and paramedics when they took her for dialysis. Hussain took her to Services Hospital for a medical examination and then registered a rape case at Eidgah police station once the sexual assault was confirmed. "No doubt the woman was subjected to gang rape as her medical report also confirmed," said SP Qaimkhani earlier on Saturday. "But it is also confirmed that she was not subjected to gang rape at the site in SIUT [as mentioned by the complainant]."

Qaimkhani said their team reviewed the security camera footage provided by the hospital and H was not raped while she was taken away for dialysis, as claimed by the complainant. "Now we have to verify if there are other culprits involved in the case."

SIUT, a reputable medical institution in the country that provides free-of-charge specialised medical care to people suffering from kidney- and liver-related diseases, had denied the family's claims. A press release issued by the hospital on Friday evening claimed that they had security footage proving the girl was not raped.

*Name withheld to protect identity

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2016.