Lahore court sends four suspects in foreign women case to judicial remand

LAHORE: A judicial magistrate at the Cantonment Courts has sent four suspects to 14-day judicial remand in a case concerning the alleged abduction and rape of two foreign women, one from the Netherlands and the other from Venezuela.

The case was registered on July 2. Police had arrested four suspects and initially obtained their five-day physical remand on July 3, which was later extended twice, most recently on July 13. On Friday, after the expiry of that remand, the suspects were produced before Judicial Magistrate Azhar Mahmood. The investigating officer submitted a progress report and requested judicial remand, which the court approved.

During the hearing, the state prosecutor opposed an application by the lawyer for one of the suspects seeking his discharge from the case, arguing that the man was accused of destroying evidence and facilitating the alleged crime. At one stage, Judge Mahmood observed that only one suspect had been named in the first information report, while the remaining accused were arrested after the two women identified them.

Case background

When the case first emerged on July 2, the father of one of the women contacted the Police Emergency Helpline 15 and reported their alleged kidnapping and rape. Lahore Deputy Inspector General Operations Faisal Kamran had said police then sent a team of senior officers, recovered the women, arrested four suspects and registered an FIR.

According to the FIR, the case was registered under Sections 375-A and 365-A of the Pakistan Penal Code. Five suspects, including a close relative of a senior political personality, abducted the women, sought ransom and sexually assaulted them during captivity. It further stated that the suspects demanded $1.5 million before sexually assaulting them.

Statements recorded before magistrate

After the FIR was lodged, the two women were produced before a judicial magistrate at the Cantonment Courts to record statements under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

According to the sworn statement of one of the women, she and her friend arrived in Pakistan on June 26, 2026, after being invited by a local business partner whom they had first met in Singapore in October 2025. She said the main suspect, presenting himself as someone with access to influential government figures, arranged their visas on the pretext of setting up meetings with prominent investors for her company.

The woman stated that they stayed for three days at a hotel in Islamabad, visited Nathia Gali and attended business presentations before travelling by road to Lahore on the afternoon of June 29. She alleged that the suspect then took them to a house in Lahore, saying they were going to attend a relative’s birthday celebration, but the property was empty when they entered.

In her account, four armed men entered the house within 15 minutes, tied the women’s hands behind their backs and assaulted them. She said the main suspect first pretended to be another victim but later appeared to be acting with the group.

The complainant alleged that the captors initially demanded $2 million, threatened to kill the women and said they would sell their organs if the demand was not met. She said the two women were separated, with her being held downstairs under armed guard while her companion was kept upstairs.

She further stated that during the night, the prime suspect and another man described as ‘the boss’ took her phone and transferred $17,000 in cryptocurrency from her accounts. She also said she was repeatedly forced to send distressed voice messages to relatives and friends asking for money, but managed to include the code word "CARLITOS" in her messages, which led her family in Europe to alert international and local law enforcement authorities.

The Dutch woman said that on June 30, an armed assailant wearing a black local suit sexually assaulted her in a bedroom. She added that on July 1, the main suspect drove both women away while claiming he was taking them to the airport. By checking the route on a concealed mobile phone, she said she realised he was misleading them and communicating with ‘the boss’ while driving slowly.

According to her statement, the women feared they were being taken to another location and began shouting for the car to stop. She said that when the vehicle lightly collided with another car, both women jumped out and ran to a mechanic’s workshop for safety. She stated that a local traffic police officer saw them and called emergency backup.

The woman added that the pair, traumatised by the ordeal, initially panicked and ran from the first police vehicle that arrived. She said senior police officers later reached the scene along with a female officer, reassured the victims and showed that law enforcement had been tracking the kidnapping case for the previous 48 hours before taking them safely to a police station for formal statements.