Woman registers gang-rape case against acquaintance

Prime suspect roams free after securing pre-arrest bail

LAHORE: Yet another rape case that was reported last week in the city remains unsolved.

Early last week, a divorced woman was allegedly gang-raped in Shahdara Town. According to the victim, the suspect Muhammad Awais trapped her on the pretext of helping her find a job and raped her with two of his friends.



The victim K*, who is a resident of Shahdara Town told The Express Tribune that five years ago, she tied the knot at the age of 15 and had two children – a boy and a girl. However, her son died at the age of three. After his death, K* said she developed differences with her in-laws and eventually, her husband divorced her a year ago.

After parting from her husband, K was living with her parents and worked as domestic help. The woman said that she belonged to a poor family and has three siblings. Her father worked as a labourer in Karachi while her mother also worked as domestic help. “My mother wanted me to stop working as a maid and find a decent job. I opted to get training to work as a beautician,” she said.

She added she was in touch with the suspect Muhammad Awais, who worked at a medical store and lived in the same locality where her in-laws lived, because she often went to his store to buy medicines.

One day, K requested Awais to help her get a job in a beauty parlour. She said he called her the next day informing her that he had found a job for her and asked her to accompany him.

“I went with him and he took me to a house near Jahangir’s Tomb, where he made me drink some intoxicating beverage,” she said, adding there were two other men there as well.

“Soon after drinking that beverage I lost consciousness. The only thing I remember is that Awais was trying to touch me and I was stopping him”, she said. “When I resisted, he asked his friend to hold me down.”

K added she managed to get an FIR registered against Awais and his accomplices, but the police was not cooperative initially.

“They made her sit for a long time and asked for money to take me for a medical checkup,” she said, adding she had to pay Rs700 that she had received from her father in Karachi.

When contacted, Investigation Officer Muhammad Furqan told The Express Tribune that they would have the suspects in custody soon.

However, the policeman said Awais has not been arrested yet because he had secured pre-arrest bail. “We have sent DNA tests and swabs to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency,” he added.

Responding to K’s allegations of non-cooperation, Furqan said that they were trying their best and would investigate the matter proficiently. “We asked her to come to the police station and take us to the place where the incident occurred but she said she cannot make it because she was feeding her child.”

A few days ago, a teenage girl was reportedly thrown out of a three-storey building in Hanjarwal after being raped. A senior police officer told The Express Tribune that the victim was a sex-worker.

He said that she had “betrayed her pimp”, adding that he killed her and stole her valuables.



Saddar SP Investigations Mehar Mumtaz said that they have arrested all the suspects involved in the case, and had sent the swabs to Punjab Forensic Science Agency and were waiting for the report for further investigations.

According to data available with The Express Tribune, at least 416 cases booked under various clauses that deal with rape, gang-rape and assault or criminal force with intent to outrage the modesty of a woman have been registered so far in 2017.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29^th, 2017.