SC deadline: Lower court given 90 days to decide rape case

Police report says the woman was humiliated, not raped.

ISLAMABAD:

After Punjab police submitted a final charge-sheet against men accused of rape, the Supreme Court on Monday disposed of the case of alleged gang rape of a 45-year old woman.

A three-judge bench – headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Tassaduq Hussain Jillani – also directed Muzaffargarh’s district and sessions judge to decide the matter within three months.

The court on February 1 took suo motu notice of an incident in which a panchayat (village council) in Mauza Rakh Tibba Sharqi area near Muzaffargarh had allegedly ordered the gang-rape of a woman ‘F’, in revenge for her brother’s alleged affair.

Punjab Additional Advocate General Razaq A Mirza submitted a report on the incident on behalf of IG Punjab police.

According to the report, the final challan had been submitted against the accused before the concerned court. It said the 45-year-old victim claimed that she was stripped and humiliated, but not raped. The incident caused outrage, after which nine out of the 10 accused were arrested.

According to the document, the victim recorded her statement on January 29, stating that she, along with her brother Allah Bakhsh, rushed to Abdul Majeed’s house on the morning of January 24 when she found out that Abdul Majeed had locked her brother, Amjad, in a room.

The men named as the accused were also standing outside the room. One of them, Rahim Bakhsh, claimed that Ajmal had illicit relations with his daughter, ‘R’, and they would ‘avenge dishonour with dishonour’. After sometime, two more persons, Muhammad Nawaz and Saeed Ahmad, came to the scene and started counselling for compromise.

‘F’ and her brother took Ajmal back to their house, but later, Muhammad Nawaz and Saeed Ahmad came over and forcibly took her back to Abdul Majeed’s house where they confined her in a room with ‘R’s brother, Ghulam Yasin.

She told the police that Yasin stripped her and tried to rape her, but she begged for mercy. He let her go and took her out of the room, after which Saeed Ahmed covered her with a cloth. Therefore, F claims that she was humiliated, but not gang-raped. The police report said an FIR had been registered against the 10 accused.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 18^th, 2014.