MSc student’s kidnap, assault case takes twist

Video presented in court shows complainant, suspect in consensual act

RAWALPINDI:

A case of sexual assault, which had gripped media attention for weeks, has been allegedly labelled as consensual act after the court views the video of the crime.

The complainant had alleged that she was offered lift by a woman, who kidnapped her. The complainant had further alleged that the kidnapper woman and her husband had assaulted her and filmed the act.

Police had arrested the suspects, Qasim Jahangir and his wife Kiran and recovered dozens of porn videos of local women from their mobile phones, laptops and pen drives.

The video presented by the suspect in the court showed both the complainant and the suspect laughing and chatting while engaged in sexual activity.

The counsel for defence Advocate Chaudhry Abid Chohan, representing the suspects including Qasim Jehangir and his wife Kiran, submitted a video as proof before District and Sessions Court Judge Jehangir Gondal on Saturday, as evidence to prove his client's innocence.

The counsel pleaded the court to revoke the First Information Report (FIR) against his client and order to register a case against the petitioner for framing the defendant in a kidnapping and rape case.

The counsel for the complainant said a case should be registered under FIA Cybercrime Wing. To this Advocate Chohan told the court that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has refused to register the case under sections of cybercrime, because the video of the complainant was not uploaded on the internet.

He added that the agency contended since the video did not go viral on the internet, it was not liable to register a case under sections of cybercrime.

The lawyer maintained that section 496 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) applied to both parties in the case after which they both would become suspects.

He said that the victim could not prove that she had her exam on the day she was allegedly raped neither that she was a student of MSc as mentioned in the FIR.

The counsel said that the doctor who examined the complainant failed to trace any wounds on the petitioner’s body proving that she was forcibly assaulted.

The suspect’s counsel demanded the court to acquit his client as the video proved all charges wrong.

However, the court has adjourned the case until November 2 and directed the lawyer to give arguments on why it was a cybercrime case.

According to the complaint, the student, who is also married, was abducted from outside Gordon College by a woman who pretended to be a fellow student. She said that her ‘brother’ was coming to pick her in a while. After a few minutes, a man arrived in a grey car and the woman pushed the victim inside the vehicle and threatened her with a knife to silence her.

The student was taken to a house in Gulistan Colony where Qasim, the husband, allegedly raped her while Kiran, the wife, took pictures and recorded video of the crime. They threatened and blackmailed the victim by showing her sexually explicit video. She was dropped on Tipu Road later at night.

The case gripped the media attention and Punjab chief minister had directed police to take strict action. Acting on the complaint, police had arrested the couple allegedly involved in kidnapping, sexually abusing, blackmailing and also recording inappropriate videos of dozens of girls in Rawalpindi.

The accused couple, identified as Qasim Jahangir and Kiran Mehmood, had confessed before police to have committed sexual assault on 45 girls and women, taking their photographs and making videos of at least 10 victims.

Police had also recovered evidence from the crime scene and sent them for forensic examination.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1^st, 2020.