Police register FIR against five men in alleged gang rape case in Ghotki

HYDERABAD: Police in Sindh’s Ghotki district have registered a first information report against five suspects over the alleged gang rape of a teenage girl, more than two weeks after the incident was said to have occurred.

According to the FIR, which was lodged by the girl’s father at Adilpur police station on Tuesday, the case has been registered under Section 376(2) of the Pakistan Penal Code. The provision states that when rape is committed by two or more persons acting with common intention, each can be punished with death or life imprisonment.

The complainant stated in the FIR that the incident took place on May 3 while he, his wife and daughter were working in the fields of a wadera. He said his daughter had been working some distance away when he later heard her cries coming from the landowner’s dera. According to the complaint, his wife ran toward the dera after hearing their daughter screaming.

The FIR says the landowner was present there along with four other men. The complainant identified three of them by name in the report, while the fourth man was described as armed and remained unidentified.

According to the complainant, the landowner and another suspect instructed one of their workers to remove the girl’s clothes. The FIR quotes the complainant as saying:

My wife and daughter were pleading, but the armed man held them at gunpoint

The complainant alleged that the suspects then stripped and gang-raped his daughter. He further stated in the FIR that the accused threatened to kill him and his family if they reported the matter to police.

Police action and activist’s account

The case was registered after police had earlier claimed there was no truth to the allegation of gang rape.

Women’s rights activist Ayesha Dharejo, who heads the Sindh Suhai Organisation, said the FIR was lodged after she approached the Sindh inspector general. She told Dawn that she was present with the family at Adilpur police station when the complaint was formally registered on the father’s application.

Dharejo also said the girl had undergone a medical examination at the taluka hospital in Ghotki. She added that police had started an investigation after the FIR was registered.

On Monday, the girl and her parents held a press conference in Sukkur in which they accused the landowner and his associates of gang-raping her.

Dawn reported that it contacted Ghotki Senior Superintendent of Police Anwer Khetran and Sukkur Deputy Inspector General Nasir Aftab for comment, but they did not answer phone calls.