HYDERABAD: Adilpur police registered a first information report (FIR) of the alleged gang rape of a teenage girl in Sindh’s Ghotki district on Tuesday, more than two weeks after the incident was said to have taken place.
The FIR, a copy of which is available with Dawnwas registered against 5 suspects on the complaint of the girl’s father under Section 376(2) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The said provision states: “When rape is committed by two or more persons in furtherance of common intention of all, each of such persons shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life.”
According to the FIR, the incident took place on May 3 when the girl and her parents were working in the fields of a Wadera (land owner).
The FIR quoted the complainant as saying that his daughter was working some distance away from him and after a while, he heard her cries coming from the landowner’s. Dera (sitting room).
He said his wife ran towards the Dera after hearing their daughter’s cries. The landowner was present there along with four other men.
The complainant identified three of those men in the FIR, but the fourth man, who he said was carrying a gun, remains unidentified.
According to the complainant, the landowner and one other man told one of their workers to strip the girl.
“My wife and daughter were pleading, but the armed man held them at gunpoint,” the FIR quoted the complainant as saying.
He alleged that the suspects stripped and gang-raped his daughter, adding that they also threatened to kill him and his family in case they lodged a complaint against them.
Previously, the police claimed that there was no truth to the allegation of gang rape.
Dawn reached out to Ghotki Senior Superintendent of Police Anwer Khetran and Sukkur Deputy Inspector General Nasir Aftab for a comment on the case, but they did not answer the phone calls.
Women’s rights activist and head of Sindh Suhai Organization (SSO) Ayesha Dharejo told Dawn that the FIR was registered after she approached the Sindh inspector general.
“I was present with the family at the Adilpur police station and got the FIR registered on the complaint of the girl’s father”, Dharejo told. Dawn over phone from Ghotki.
She said that the girl’s medical examination had also been conducted at the taluka hospital in Ghotki.
Police also launched an investigation following the registration of the FIR, she added.
On Monday, the girl and her parents also held a press conference in Sukkur, accusing the landowner and his companions of gang-raping her.
