The nightmare continues: Teenage victim pressured by rapist to settle the case

Says policeman who is now incarcerated is sending over criminals to her house to force her to drop charges.

MANSEHRA: Fourteen-year-old Masooma Bibi* who was first raped by five men and then by the policeman she turned to help for has said the latter is threatening her to drop the charges or reach a settlement.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday, Masooma said Moharrar Mushtaq, who is in Mansehra Jail after being suspended and faces criminal charges for allegedly raping her, was reaching out through his ‘emissaries’.

Two union council nazims and someone who the rape victim suspected was a criminal visited Masooma’s house to convince her to “forgive Mushtaq as being prosecuted could deprive him of his service benefits and humiliate his family.”

Masooma said Mushtaq was threatening her via these men to back off—saying if she doesn’t, Mushtaq would get her killed and her body dumped.

Determined to bring her rapists to justice, Masooma said the sexual assault has destroyed her and she will not give an inch to the perpetrators. “I will pursue the case,” she said, asking the chief justice of Pakistan and the IGP for protection from Mushtaq.

The teenager from Andrasi earlier said that on August 11, Khush Niaz, also from the same village, raped her.

She said previously, Niaz would come to her house frequently with Shafi, Noor, Javed and Gul while her father would be away for work. The girl said the men would come over to rape her sister-in-law Rehma Bibi* whose husband was away in Karachi.

When her mother finally managed to send Rehma to Karachi, the attention of the accused, said to be influential men, turned to the fourteen-year-old.

“They attempted to grab me several times on my school route but I would manage to escape,” Masooma had shared. “I told my parents who begged the men to not destroy my life but it fell on deaf ears and one day they raped me.”

“They even made a video of their crime on a mobile phone and showed me the footage so they could blackmail me into letting them rape me again.” Masooma said she was raped four times after the first time over the last two months. The men had threatened to show the video to the villagers if she ever spoke of what happened to her.

“I got pregnant in July, and Niaz forced me to swallow three pills; I thought I was dying after as I started bleeding profusely.” Niaz raped her again on August 11 and that’s when she decided to lodge a criminal case.

Masooma said after the moharrar registered the FIR, he asked her to come to the station from where they would go to a hospital for her medical examination.

On August 19, when Masooma reached the station with her mother, Mushtaq took them to his house in Ghazi Township instead of a hospital. He asked the girl’s mother to wait in the car, while he took Masooma inside, locked the door and allegedly raped her.

The accused Mushtaq is in jail while Niaz is out on bail.

*Names changed to protect identity

Published in The Express Tribune, September 3^rd, 2014.