September 19, 2013

Woman moves SHC for quashment of FIR against husband

Karachi: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday issued notices to the New Karachi police, the advocate general and others on a woman’s petition seeking the quashment of an abduction case against her husband.

Sonia told the court that she married Waqas in Jhang on August 16, but their marriage annoyed her family members and they registered a kidnapping case against her spouse and in-laws. She said her husband did not abduct or force her to marry him, but the New Karachi police were harassing them.

She asked the court to quash the case against her spouse and in-laws. A single bench, headed by Justice Maqbool Baqar, issued notices to the police, the prosecutor general and others, and called their comments on October 10.

The bench also issued notices to the Garden police and others on a petition of a man challenging the alleged unlawful confinement of his wife by his in-laws. Ziaul Hasan submitted that he married Muniba on July 20 against the wishes of his wife’s family.

He said his wife was illegally detained by his in-laws at their house and they had not allowed him to meet her since August 15.

The News

September 19, 2013

Rapist of minor girl jailed for 10 years

Karachi: A court convicted a man of rape and sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment on Wednesday.

Ayaz Khan had raped six-year-old girl on September 6, 2011.

The father of the girl, Sadaqat Shah, had lodged an FIR at Mochkko police station, alleging that Khan, a neighbour, lured his daughter away by offering to buy her sweets and then raped her.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (West) Zahida Sikandar, who heard 11 witnesses and examined medical reports, observed that the charges had been proved against the accused and he was liable to undergo an imprisonment of 10 years.

Meanwhile, Additional District and Sessions Judge Irfan Ahmed granted bail to Mujahid alias Kallo for Rs500,000 in a murder case.

Mujahid had been in jail for the last four years, but no witness turned up to give evidence against him.

According to the prosecution, he had killed a man, Tajuddin, on September 12, 2009 in Pak Colony. The court had been issuing summons to 11 prosecution witnesses for appearance. The court noted that despite the issuance of summons and notices, no witnesses had ever appeared and it would be unjust not to grant bail to the accused.

The court denied bail to a man, Syed Akbar, who is facing charges of involvement in police encounters and illegal possession of arms. The court rejected his bail, saying that it had to examine witnesses in the case.

The News

September 19, 2013September 19, 2013

Lahore rape case: Missing part of CCTV footage released

By: Akbar Bajwa

LAHORE: The Lahore police has released the missing part of the CCTV footage of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, which shows the main accused in the rape case of a five-year-old girl, a senior officer with the investigating team told The Express Tribune.

A girl was raped and found outside the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Lahore, on Friday.

A few minutes of the closed-circuit video released to the media earlier showed two men, separately and at different times, carrying the child outside the hospital. The police concluded that the man in the video who had first dropped off the child outside the Medical Superintendent’s office is the main accused.

On Wednesday, the Superintendent Police said that the earlier footage showed the child with the men before and after the incident. The video during those times shows a woman named Zohra Bibi taking the victim to the children’s ward. The security guard, seen in the later part of the footage released earlier, took the victim to the police post and then to the main emergency ward.

Zohra Bibi, who was there to get her own daughter treated at the hospital, had found the unattended but conscious girl outside and had brought her in.

The girl, though able to walk on her own, can be seen holding her head, which was a sign that she was dizzy, said the S P. “We concluded that she felt a little fainted,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Lahore police are still waiting for the DNA results to reach a conclusion in the investigation of the rape case.

Express Tribune

September 19, 2013

Faisalabad rape: Victim identifies attacker

By: Shamsul Islam

FAISALABAD: The Faisalabad rape victim has identified the accused Sajid Masih, in an identification parade, conducted by the Pir Mehal Police in the presence of her parents and other relatives on Wednesday.

Pir Mehal Station House Officer (SHO) Abdul Samad told The Express Tribune that the accused has been formally arrested.

“Sajid will be presented before the area magistrate on Thursday for physical remand,” he said.

Talking about collection of evidence, Samad said “In consonance with the instructions of the Inspector General Police office and decision of the apex court, DNA samples would also be obtained from the accused as well as the victim to ascertain the truthfulness of the allegation.”

The SHO said the rape victim had been left the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital (THQ) Pir Mehal.
“She has been discharged after treatment and medical examination, and has now fully recovered,” he said while talking about her current health condition.

The 13-year-old was sexually abused by 22-year-old Sajid Masih when she was alone in her house in Pir Mehal on Monday. Her father, Zahoor Ahmad had complained to the police that his family was outside for work when Sajid committed the unforgivable crime.

IG seeks report

Punjab Inspector General Police Khan Baig has directed all the district police officers (DPOs) and city police officers (CPOs) to submit details of all cases in which minors under the age of 15 were sexually assaulted in the province during current year, within 24 hours.

The directive also asked for detailed report on the progress of all rape cases and sexual torture of juveniles, apart from whether the cases have been submitted to the respective courts for trial.

The IG has also sought details on whether the cases are yet to be completed for want of the arrest of the accused and other formalities.

Express Tribune

September 19, 2013

NA-25 by-polls: women voters disenfranchised in parts of constituency

Four incidents of women being barred from voting during the NA-25 (Dera Ismail Khan-cum-Tank) by-election were reported on Wednesday. The voting process was largely peaceful amid heavy deployment of security personnel. However, female voters were disenfranchised in parts of the constituency where community elders had reportedly decided to bar women from voting.

Fafen observers reported complete absence of women at one polling station. Another two polling stations had not received a single female vote till 12pm. One of the observers also reported the absence of female polling staff at a polling station till 10:30am.

There were eight incidents where security officials barred Fafen observers from entering polling stations, despite them having obtained accreditation cards from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). There were at least six instances of the polling process being stopped due to lunch, tea or prayer breaks. This update is based on direct field observations from 69 polling stations till 4pm. The preliminary report on the by-election is scheduled to be released on Thursday.

A total of 366,500 voters – 204,767 men and 161,783 women were registered for the by-election. The ECP set up 308 polling stations (77 male, 74 female and 157 combined) and deployed army personnel and FC troops in addition to police officials to maintain tight security at polling stations.

The seat was vacated by Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), who emerged victorious from three other constituencies in the 2013 General Elections. Rehman had won the seat by securing 77,595 votes (39 percent of the votes polled) when the turnout was 53.26 percent, according to the ECP. The by-election was originally scheduled to take place on August 22, 2013 but was postponed due to security issues in the region.

FAFEN deployed 24 trained, non-partisan and ECP-accredited citizens to observe the by-election at 172 polling stations. The observers were assigned to collect objective information on the quality of elections that feed into research-based recommendations for improvement of future elections. On average, each observer covered seven polling stations and spent between 45 and 60 minutes at each polling station to document the observations and findings on a standardised checklist. The checklist is based on the provisions of the Representation of the Peoples Act 1976, Conduct of Elections Rules 1977, and instructional handbooks provided to election officials by the ECP.

Business Recorder