Police raid: Two held on rape charges, three get away

House was equipped with CCTV cameras and its walls were protected with barbed wire.

RAWALPINDI:

Civil Lines Police Tuesday arrested two men on charges of abducting and raping four young women at gunpoint in a house at Tulsa Road, Rawalpindi.

The incident came to notice after one of the victims managed to escape by climbing the wall of the house and informed neighbours that she along with three others were forced to drink alcohol and gang raped by five men in the house.

The police raided the house and arrested Malik Fardos along with one of his accomplice.

The remaining suspects managed to get away.

The house was equipped with CCTV cameras and its walls protected with barbed wire, police officials said. They also recovered a Toyota Vigo (a double cabin pickup), three AK-47 rifles and one repeater gun from the house.

The rescued women, Neelum Bibi*, Khadija*, Sara* and Sana*, informed the police that they were brought to Rawalpindi on Monday from Wah by Malik Fardos, who promised to get them jobs in an NGO.

“As we crossed Taxila he [Fardos] pointed a gun at us and two other cars escorted our car to the house where we were raped all night,” one of the victims told media.

The victims, all aged between 20 and 25, said they sell cosmetics in Wah.

Area Superintendent Police Haroon Joya said an FIR against the suspects can only be lodged after a medical examination as the girls are accusing the men of rape.

He added that one of the accused, Malik Fardos, is a proclaimed offender and is wanted in a murder case registered with the Airport police in 2007.

The residents of the area said that they were always sceptical about Fardos’s activities and were surprised to the security measures taken for the safety of his house.

*Names have been changed to protect identity of the victims

Published in The Express Tribune, July 6^th, 2011.