Karachi: Two more minor girls were sexually assaulted in Karachi on Saturday just two days after the brutal murder of a 13-year-old student after rape.
In the first incident, a five-year-old girl was raped in Orangi Town by her neighbour who lured her with sweets to a desolate place.
The survivor was found unconscious at the rooftop of the Shaheed-e-Millat Dispensary in Tauheed Colony.
Police were called at the spot and the victim was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where doctors said the girl had been raped.
The victim regained consciousness after a few hours and told the police her address and her father’s name, said Iqbal Market SHO Amjad Kiyani. A police team then went to the house of Asif, who was already searching for his daughter in the neighbourhood.
Police said when the man was taken to the hospital, the child told him that she had been playing outside her house when their neighbour Ashraf Yousuf persuaded her come with him to buy sweets.
The rape survivor recalled that Yousuf took her to the Janat-ul-Baqi graveyard from where he bought some sweets for her. Later, the man took the girl to the dispensary’s rooftop where he assaulted her.
After recording her statement, the police launched raids in the area and after a comprehensive search operation arrested the suspected rapist.
SHO Kiyani said the man was shifted to the police station, where the girl recognised him as her rapist.
Police have registered a case on the complaint of the girl’s father and further investigations are under way.
Another rape
In Mehmoodabad, a 17-year-old girl was gang raped for two days by her friend and his three accomplices and then dumped at the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine.
Police said a man, who lives in Kashmir Colony, had come to the police station and stated that he had found his teenage daughter unconscious at the shrine and took her to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.
A police team went to the hospital to record the statement of the rape survivor, said Mehmoodabad SHO Mohammed Sarwar.
The girl told the police that her friend, Shahid alias Shani who had been living in Qayyumabad for the past few months, had asked her out on Wednesday night.
On Thursday afternoon, Shani picked her up from the Kashmir Colony bus stop on a motorcycle and took her to a vacant house in Qayyumabad, the girl recalled.
As they were sitting in a room, three friends of the man barged into the room and all of them sexually assaulted her, the rape survivor said. The men raped her for two days and when she fell unconscious, they threw her near the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine.
The police after recording the rape survivor’s statement, raided the house of the alleged rapist and arrested him. One of his friends, Waqar alias Vicky, was also arrested on his information while two more suspect were at large, SHO Sarwar said.
After the medical examination of the girl and the rapists, police registered a case.
Outbreak of cases
Rape cases are already notoriously hard to prosecute in Pakistan. Under the current laws, the victims must produce four witnesses – all male, adult and pious – to bring rape allegations to trial.
A flurry of rape cases of minor girls have emerged across the country in recent weeks.
On September 12, a five-year-old girl was raped and then left outside the Ganga Ram Hospital. The rapists have yet to be arrested.
Only on September 24, the country’s supreme Islamic body – the Council of Islamic Ideology – had recommended that DNA identification tests could not be accepted as the primary evidence in rape cases.
“Although DNA testing is a useful, modern technique for supporting evidence, it cannot be used as primary evidence alone,” the council chief had announced while addressing a news conference. “The court can take the decision in light of DNA tests when it has been corroborated with other evidence as supporting material.”
Just two days later, two teenaged sisters were raped and then shot dead in Gujranwala. The bodies of the girls, aged 16 and 17, were found in a drain in the outskirts of the city on September 26.
On the same day, the body of a 13-year-old student was found dumped at a popular beachfront in Karachi. The girl was abducted from her school two days earlier before being raped and strangled to death. A relative and a neighbour of the victim have been arrested on suspicion.
