Woman allegedly raped in F-9 Park

Outrage on social media as Islamabad police fail to trace suspected rapists

ISLAMABAD:

In a shocking incident, a young woman was allegedly raped by two armed men at Fatima Jinnah Park in Islamabad.

The incident took place on February 2. According to the victim*, she was visiting the Fatima Jinnah Pak also known as F-9 Park along with a male companion when she was raped by the suspects at gunpoint.

The capital police have failed to trace the alleged rapists despite claiming to have installed sophisticated cameras at every nook and corner under the Islamabad Safe City Project. The incident has also put a question mark on the viability of the multi-billion safe city project.

Islamabad police said that its Gender Protection Unit was probing the harassment under CPO Operations Sohail Zafar Chattha. They said that they were currently interrogating the park administration and other people who were present in the park at the time.

ICT spokesperson furthered that evidence is being collected based on CCTV cameras and local intelligence, adding that the real culprits will be arrested soon and brought to justice.

The woman and a colleague were at the park when two armed suspects showed up and held them hostage and moved them to a forested area of the park.

The two armed men forced the woman and her colleague into nearby bushes at gunpoint before separating them. The armed men then physically assaulted the woman when she pleaded and asked them to let her go. She even offered money to them to let her go but they didn’t relent, according to the FIR lodged by the victim at the Margala Police Station.

The attackers even threatened the woman that they would call more ‘friends’ to attack her if she did not stop raising her voice. The victim tried to run away but her attempts were foiled by the gun-toting attackers, the FIR said.

After raping her, the attackers returned all the things belonging to the victim and her colleague and even offered them a thousand rupees to keep quiet about the incident. According to the FIR, the alleged rapists told the victim that she should not have been in the park at that time of the night.

Police said that a case has been registered based on the victim’s complaint and they were investigating the matter. Police said that they were examining the CCTV footage from nearby areas to identify the two accused. Meanwhile, the victim underwent a medical examination and a forensic check-up at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences Hospital.

Sources at the PIMS said that the 24-year-old victim had marks of torture on her body. “There were injury marks on the leg, and face of the victim,” sources at the PIMS said.

The incident has led to widespread outrage on social media as people expressed their shock over the despicable incident.

Sources said that F-9 Park has become a no-go zone for citizens with criminals roaming around to abuse and rob women and men who come to walk at gunpoint.

According to police records, a total of 37 incidents have been reported in the last one year, including the rape of six girls and women and the murder of the manager of a private food delivery company.

Police sources told The Express Tribune that in the last one year, 31 people, including women, have been looted at gunpoint while in one case a foreign woman was also been robbed.

Police sources told The Express Tribune that in most cases, young girls and women were raped at gunpoint. The rape incidents have put a question mark on the performance of the police that failed to trace the accused even four days after the incident.

A senior officer told The Express Express that the victim was taken to the safe city office where she was shown videos of people passing through the highways adjoining the park so that she could identify the accused and help the police in arresting them. However, the accused have not yet been traced.

Such incidents in F-9 Park have become a challenge for the police. Answering a question, the police officer said the police were pursuing the investigation from different angles. He said that the male with whom the victim had been in the park, could also be involved in the rape.

The police officer said that the CDA also has offices in F-9 Park and its staff are also on duty in the park. He said that the scope of the investigation has been expanded to include the CDA officials in the probe.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 6^th, 2023.a