Police constable named among rape suspects

DNA samples of the victim and the suspect have been sent to a laboratory.

MULTAN:

A police constable posted in Multan has been accused of raping a 15-year-old girl, police said on Saturday.

Rajaram SHO Zulfiqar Gujjar told The Express Tribune that a case had been registered against Constable Asif Sanwal.

He said Sanwal had been identified by the victim as one of the two men who, she said raped her on October 19.

*Riaz, the father of the girl, a resident of Shujabad, told the media that his daughter worked at a brick kiln.

He said on October 19 she was abducted and raped by Contable Asif Sanwal of Rajaram police and an unidentified accomplice.

They left her in the fields…she was taken to a rural health centre in Kotli Najabat by a passerby who found her there,” he said.

Riaz said an initial medical examination report showed that his daughter had been raped.



The girl’s mother, *Hameeda, said she and her family had been receiving death threats.

We have also been threatened with sacking from our jobs at the brick kiln if we go ahead with the case,” she said.

Station House Officer Zulfiqar Gujjar said Constable Asif Sanwal had been granted an interim bail. He said police were looking for the other suspect.

He said the DNA samples of the victim and the suspect had been sent to a laboratory in Lahore. “A detailed report would be available soon,” he said.

Asif Sanwal told The Express Tribune that he was innocent. He said the girl’s family had an old rivalry with their relatives.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, the family and relatives of the victim held a protest demonstration in Multan and demanded justice.

The girl’s mother told the media that if the provincial government guaranteed their security she would name the policemen who had been threatening her family.

*Names have been changed to protect identities.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2013.