Disabled girl assaulted, kidnapped by landlord

FAISALABAD: In Faisalabad, an influential landlord’s brother-in-law raped the disabled daughter of a farmer and later abducted the girl from the hospital.

In the village Chak no 32, Risalay Wala near Faisalabad a resident Muhammad Younas’s polio-stricken daughter Raheela (17) was alone at home when an influential landlord Chaudhry Ahmed Javed’s brother-in-law Ehtisham entered the house and raped the girl. Raheela cannot walk and is usually bed-ridden unless her family assists her around the house. She said that the accused had threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the incident. “He covered my mouth to prevent me from screaming for help and told me that if I told anyone, he and his family would kill us all. Then he ran away,” she said.

Raheela’s sister Musarat and brother Moshin, came home to find her in a fit of tears and bleeding. They immediately took her to the civil hospital for treatment. Mohsin, meanwhile went to the civil line police station to register the case. “The police told me that I was lying. They refused to register the case against Ehtisham’s family and said that I should go back to the hospital and get an MLC to prove my claim,” he said. Mohsin came back to the hospital to find that Ehtisham had brought a group of four men to the hospital and was harassing his sister Musarat, while Raheela was lying unconscious. “They told us not to go to the police, offering us Rs10,000 to ‘forget the matter’,” Musarat said. She said that the four men threatened them and said that they should all go back to the village and settle the matter ‘quietly’.

When Mohsin refused, the men beat him and his sister up. When they were lying on the floor unconscious, Ehtisham and his group abducted Raheela and took her from the hospital. Mohsin woke up to find his sister missing. “My sister and I recovered half an hour later but Raheela and the group was gone.

The hospital staff told us that they had taken my sister but no one had stopped them,” he said. Mohsin went back to the Civil Line police station to register an abduction and rape case. “The police didn’t take either case. Instead they told me that my sister had not been kidnapped but that Ehtisham was being ‘neighbourly’ and had taken her back home,” he said. “They told us to go back home and settle the matter peacefully, saying that we should just take the money and forget about it,” Mohsin added.

When Civil Line police refused to file the case, Mohsin and his sister went to the Saddar police to register an abduction case. “We already had a medical legal certificate (MLC) from the hospital confirming that my sister had been raped but the police still refused to take the case,” he said. Musarat said that when the siblings refused to ‘let go of the matter’ and threatened to go to the press, the police threatened them and asked them to leave the station.

Faisalabad station house officer (SHO) Saddar Nasir Chatha said that he was completely unaware of the incident. “I have heard of no such complaint but if something happens and the brother and sister submit an application, we will take action,” he said. Mohsin and Musarat, who have filed an application with both the Civil line police station as well as the Saddar police station, said that the police had still taken no action and that their sister and Ehtisham were now missing.

Published in the Express Tribune, May 24th, 2010.