Woman ‘gang-raped’ in Lodhran

A woman who depended on alms for her living was allegedly gang-raped by five people in Lodhran.

According to local officials, initial medical examination of the victim confirmed that she had been raped.

The police arrested three of the suspects and launched a hunt for their two accomplices.

The officials said Mohammad Javed, a resident of Chak 100M, had complained in an application submitted to the police that his wife who went from house to house to beg for flour to make ends meet had been raped.

The complainant stated that his wife was taken to an unknown location recently by five men, including Naveed, Saifal and Bilal, and gang-raped her.

He said the victim had been kept hostage for 10 days before she found an opportunity to escape.

According to police, a case of the abduction of a woman under crime 496a had already been registered, and now the section of rape was being added to the case.

The victim said that when she asked her captives to let her go home, the accused drugged her and threatened to kill her two children, both boys, whose ages were five and six.

One of her sons is blind.

The couple had demanded of the higher authorities to provide justice to them and punish the accused.

In March 2021, a differently-abled girl was allegedly raped and filmed in the rural area of Mouza Kundi in Lodhran.

Reportedly, the victim was repeatedly raped by five suspects over the past three months.

On the day of the incident, the suspects had filmed her rape and blackmailed her father into giving them money.

The victim, 16, was the daughter of a security guard.

The video of the heinous crime had gone viral on certain social media platforms.

The DPO had taken immediate action and arrested the two alleged rapists and a case had been registered against them.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 24^th, 2023.