A local court in Islamabad on Tuesday extended for four days the physical remand of four suspects, including Usman Mirza, in a case pertaining to sexual assault and harassing.
As Judicial Magistrate Waqar Gondal took up the matter for hearing, the investigation officer submitted a report in the court and said that the suspects filmed the couple naked for around two-and-a-half hour in the presence of 14 suspected accomplices.
The report said that until the video went viral on the internet; the suspects had appropriated Rs1.125 million from the couple from time to time by blackmailing them.
The police produced Usman Mirza, Attaur Rehman, Farhan and Qayyum Butt in the court after completion of their four-day physical remand.
The victims’ lawyer told the court that his clients were not present at the hearing because of security issues. The lawyer pleaded with the court that the police must be given as much time as possible to investigate the heinous incident.
He said that it was a case of public interest while people were scared to stay in guest houses, fearing to encounter a similar incident.
The public prosecutor said that they have recorded the statements of the victims. He informed the court that the suspects took Rs6,000 from the boy in the video when it was being recorded and continued taking bribes in bits and pieces. The suspect who took this money was yet to be apprehended, he told the court.
The lawyer said that 14 to15 suspects were present when the couple were filmed for two-and-a-half-hour. He added that three voyeurs separately recorded the videos after stripping the victims.
The lawyer maintained that the special investigation team under the SP Investigation has also been formed to probe the case and new sections have been incorporated in the first information report (FIR) as well.
The public prosecutor said that a separate case of weapon recovery has been registered against Mirza at the Sector I-9 Police Station. He added that more mobile phones had were to be recovered in the case.
Mirza’s lawyer told the court that the wife of a man, namely Sheikh Qayyum, circulated the video on the internet. He said that he was the same person whose cheque worth Rs20 million had bounced earlier.
Prosecutor Hasan Javed pleaded for an extension in the physical remand of the suspects, as, according to him, the victims had brutally been treated. The suspect’s counsel citing the Supreme Court ruling said that a suspect remains innocent until proven guilty.
The court, while issuing instructions to the investigation officer to devise rules for Rehman and others, extended the physical remand of the arrested suspects.
At the last hearing, Sufyan Cheema, counsel for Ataur Rehman, had maintained that even though his client was seen in video, he had nothing to do with the incident.
In the video, he argued that it can be seen Ataur Rehman was only trying to cool down the situation.
He had pleaded with the court not to grant further extension in the physical remand of his client.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 14th, 2021.
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