Two brothers involved in a gang rape during a robbery in Fatehpuri village near Sheikhupura Motorway were killed in an alleged police encounter on Sargodha Road on Sunday.
The two suspects had escaped from police custody two days ago while one of their brothers remained in detention.
Police said the three brothers during a robbery gang raped a girl and looting the victim’s family during a wedding procession.
The alleged rapists included Pervez and Junaid. Reportedly, the victim was a girl from a poor family.
District Police Officer (DPO) Ghulam Mubashir Mekan said that in the wee hours of January 6, a wedding procession of the poor family was returning to their village Kakkar Gul from Khanqah Dogran area. The victim and her family were travelling in a rickshaw.
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The three brothers stopped the rickshaw near Fatehpuri village and looted them.
Meanwhile, two of the robbers took the girl under dense trees and raped her despite her family begging for mercy.
The alleged rapists tied up seven members of the family, including the victim’s father and elder sister, and raped the girl in front of them.
Reportedly, the robbery and rape incident took place over several hours.
Five days after the incident occurred, the police arrested the three brothers.
After their arrest, it had been revealed that the three brothers had also committed dozens of other robberies and street crimes in several districts of Punjab, including Sheikhupura, Gujranwala and Hafizabad.
One of the suspects, Pervez, was released a few weeks ago after serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence in cases of heinous crimes.
According to police record, 22 cases were registered against Pervez and 14 cases were registered against Junaid in different police stations.
Two days ago, the police were taking the two brothers to the village of Asher to recover the looted goods when four of their accomplices attacked the police team and got the suspects freed from their handcuffs and took them to an unknown place on motorcycles during the late hours of the day.
The two robbers, Pervez and Junaid, along with three others, were looting vehicles near Khanqah Dogran.
When local people gathered, they fled towards Sheikhupura on a motorcycle.
On the way, the police at Awan Bhattian village check-post tried to stop them, but they exchanged fire with the police. During the police encounter, both the brothers were shot dead by the firing of their own three accomplices, the police said.
According to the DPO, the search for the remaining suspects was underway. The bodies of the two deceased brothers had been shifted to DHQ Hospital.
A resident of Asher village told The Express Tribune that the 16-year-old girl who was gang raped by the three brothers was the daughter of Gulzar Masih, a labourer from Kakargul village.
After the incident, human rights organisations of several European countries had protested against the gang rape.
(THE VICTIM’S IDENTITY HAS NOT BEEN DISCLOSED AS A MATTER OF POLICY)
Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2021.
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