Parading teenager naked: After six-month manhunt, police admit failure

Say they have no clue where prime suspect is, forensics unable to find traces of incident video

PESHAWAR: Six months after a teenaged girl was stripped naked and then paraded, police in Dera Ismail Khan have conceded their failure in apprehending the main accused.

Appearing before a two-judge bench of the Peshawar High Court (PHC), comprising Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Ijaz Anwar, the Dera Ismail Khan police presented a report on the progress made in their investigations into the case.

“So far, we have no clues pertaining to his presence in any particular area,” admitted Kolachi circle Deputy Superintendent of Police Khalid Usman.



Usman had appeared before the bench along with Inspector Sagheer Gillani, the investigation officer in the case, to provide the court with an update on the case.

They went on to tell the court that they had conducted dozens of raids but have been unable to trace the whereabouts of the main accused in the case.

Over the past six months, the police had vehemently maintained that they had some clues as to the whereabouts of the suspect and that they were conducting raids to catch the suspect.

The two officers went on to tell the court that eight out of the nine suspects have already been arrested and are currently facing trail at a local court in DI Khan.



Over the past month, they said, they had conducted around 16 raids in different parts of the country to apprehend the suspect but were unable to do so.

To stop his movement, the officers said that they had blocked the suspect’s computerised national identity card (CNIC), confiscated 138 kanals of land to his name, blocked provision of pension, and that his name had also been included on the Exit Control List to prevent his flight from the country.

Moreover, they told the court the suspect did not have a passport, which automatically rules him out of leaving the country from a formal port, but admitted that they could not rule out the chances that the suspect fled the country using clandestine means.

“We have yet to find any signs that he is present in any particular area,” the police officers said.



Meanwhile, the petitioner’s lawyer, Qazi Muhammad Anwar, requested the court that the relevant sections from the anti-terrorism law should be included in the first information report filed against the suspects and that the case should be tried in an anti-terror court.

However, the government’s lawyer argued that since the case is already being heard by a trial court in DI Khan, the petitioner can submit an application to include sections of the ATC law before the relevant court.

This, however, did not satisfy Anwar who insisted that the PHC include sections of the anti-terrorism law.

Moreover, Anwar claimed that one of the accused had allegedly filmed the entire incident on his cellphone and that the police should retrieve the video lest it finds itself on the internet.

The police officers explained that they had recovered nine mobile phones from the suspect. These phones were then dispatched to a forensic science laboratory to find traces of the video. However, they had not found evidence of any such video.

Despite that, the officers said they were continuing their investigation into the matter and if they recover the video, they would inform the court.



“But has no one investigated why he had such a large number of mobile phones,” asked Anwar.

After listening to arguments and explanations from the police, the court decided to grant police more time to trace the suspects.

“We want the police to continue, and speed up their efforts, to arrest the main suspect and produce him before the court,” Justice Afridi said. “We can give as much relief as we can.”

“I will ensure that efforts made by the police persist and they regularly come and tell us what they have done,” he added.

The court adjourned the case till May 15 and directed police hasten their efforts to arrest the prime accused.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 27^th, 2018.