Foreign vlogger gang-raped in DG Khan

Prime suspect remanded in BMP custody

DERA GHAZI KHAN:

The Border Military Police (BMP) has registered a rape case on the complaint of a vlogger and social media activist from the United States.

Arabela Urpi, 21, stated in the first information report (FIR) registered at the BMP station at the Fort Munro hill station that she was raped by Muzmal Sipra and Shehzad of Rajanpur on the night of July 17 in a hotel room.

She alleged that Sipra had also recorded her video earlier without her consent.

The complainant also said she had received threats from Sipra to not pursue legal proceedings against them .

The BMP registered the case against Sipra, Shehzad and Azan Khosa of Dera Ghazi Khan under Sections 376 and 292b of Pakistan Penal Code .

Dera Ghazi Khan Deputy Commissioner Anwar Baryar, who is Senior Commandant of the BMP, told reporters that the foreign woman had arrived from Karachi and stayed at house of one of the suspects in Rajanpur for two days before reaching Fort Munro in DG Khan district along with them.

He said the main suspect had been arrested, while the complainant had appeared before a magistrate in Dera Ghazi Khan.

The process for medico-legal examination of the complainant and the suspected had been initiated, the official added.

According to her online profile, the complainant runs a Facebook page, Spicy Travel Girl, having videos, including some about the tribal area.

She can be seen clad in traditional Baloch dress and standing in front of the tomb of Ghazi Khan in DG Khan and at Demes Lake in Fort Munro along with the suspects nominated by her in the case.

The area magistrate granted six-day physical remand of the detained suspect to the Fort Munro BMP.

The complainant was sent to a hospital for medico-legal proceedings.

The horrific gang rape of a woman in front of her children on Lahore-Sialkot motorway in September, 2020 shocked the entire nation and triggered countrywide outrage as questions are being raised over the duplicitous nature of a society where sheer savagery lies lurks behind the veil of piousness and morality and nowhere seems to be safe anymore.

The appalling incident has set off a debate on mainstream and social media on behavioural tendencies and the alarming rise in the cases of sexual violence in the country as well as the inability of the law enforcement mechanism to provide security to citizens as even a drive on a motorway can prove to be perilous.

The Punjab government claimed that police had rounded up 12 suspects.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2022.