Judge orders police to stay away from accuser

Rejects plea of police to take custody of woman for taking back her statement

RAWALPINDI: A civil judge of Rawalpindi on Wednesday rejected the plea of the police to take custody of the woman who had retracted her statement of gang rape charges against three police constables and their accomplice.

Civil Judge Sameera Alamgir also turned down request of Rawalpindi police to send complainant RA to Darul Amaan where her statement could be recorded. The judge also warned the police not to harass or pressurise RA.

“You are free to go wherever you want,” Judge Alamgir told RA, the woman who had made headlines when she filed a case against three cops and their friend for kidnaping and raping her in a car.

Rawat police had registered a case after the statement of the victim and arrested the four nominated suspects.

However, the woman retracted her statement on Tuesday, telling Civil Judge Sameera Alamgir that she had been forced to implicate the nominated people.

During the hearing on Wednesday, the victim complained that she was being pressurised and harassed by the police since she had retracted her earlier statement. At this, the judge, in a packed to capacity courtroom, pointed at RA and said: “Inform the court if they ( police) pressurise or harass you.”

The complainant said that she was intercepted and abducted by ASI Zain but high police officials removed his name and instead added names of four other constables.

She maintained that she had never met or seen them in her life. The victim said that high officials forcibly obtained her signatures on application of holding them responsible for the offence.

“The court can free them if it wants. They are not my suspects,” RA said.

She added that the police did not take her forensic laboratory in Lahore despite she repeatedly asked for it and said that she was disheartened by the police behaviour.

The investigation officer Sub Inspector Kausar requested the court to give custody of RA or send her to Darul Aman where her statement would be recorded.

The applicant’s counsel asserted that why did the police want to arrest her client and why there were perusing the case suddenly.

She asked why the police was charging people of their own choice? The counsel said that her client was allowed to roam freely as per law.

The court said that it had recorded the statement after a two hour long briefing and no other statement was required. The court ordered that the victim could go anywhere she wanted.

Police story

SP Saddar Mazhar Iqbal had called a press conference on Tuesday night after the alleged rape victim had withdrawn her charge against the nominated suspects.

SP Iqbal said the investigation in the case would continue, facts will be exposed and police would present the charge sheet in the court. He disclosed to the media that the polygraph tests of the victim and four accused would be done next month.

SP Iqbal had said that the police conducted investigations on merit. Police were standing with the victim and there was no place for criminal elements in Rawalpindi police, he said.

He ruled out any chance of deal between the suspect and the victim. “The case of RA was registered under sections relating to gang rape in which compromise was totally invalidated,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 30^th, 2019.