A sessions court has sentenced a man to life in prison for sexually abusing a teenage girl. Saghar was convicted of assaulting the 15-year-old girl after luring her to Quetta in July 2022.
Additional Sessions Judge (South) Ashraf Hussain Khowaja ruled that the victim implicated the accused in the commissioning of the offence of rape in her testimony as well as the statement before the relevant magistrate. Her deposition was further supported by medical evidence and the DNA report, he said.
The judge awarded life imprisonment to the accused for the offence of rape and ordered him to pay a fine of Rs50,000 or undergo additional three-month imprisonment. About the accused’s claim that he had converted to Islam and contracted marriage with her, the judge said he failed to place on record any ‘sanad’ (certificate of conversion) or nikahnama to prove his version.
He observed the prosecution failed to prove the charge of abduction against the accused as it had only the testimony of the girl, who claimed that she was forcibly abducted. However, he added that the victim remained silent throughout her journey from Karachi to Quetta and again from Quetta to Karachi.
“The victim has not alleged the accused to be armed with any weapon, nor she has alleged any intoxicant used by the accused at the time of abduction to make her helpless and unable to cry. She also did not remember the vehicle in which she was abducted from Karachi to Quetta. She also deposed that the police had checked them on the way but she didn’t raise any cries,” noted the judge.
“In these circumstances, this court is of the humble opinion that the victim voluntarily accompanied the accused from Karachi to Quetta and [was] not abducted as alleged by the prosecution.”
State prosecutor Irfana Qadri contended that on July 1, 2022, accused Saghar abducted the girl from outside a madresa in Sector-C of Manzoor Colony with intent to compel her to marry him against her will or seduce her into an extra-marital affair and assaulted her. She said that the accused was later arrested and the girl was recovered from his possession.
The victim testified that on July 1, 2022, her father left her at a seminary and went to offer Asr prayers. Before entering the seminary, she said she went to buy snacks from a nearby shop outside the madresa where Saghar met her and forcibly took her to Quetta.
The girl said she stayed there for about 20-21 days, during which he subjected her to sexual abuse and upon her request he brought her back to his friend’s house in Karachi, where the police traced them.
An FIR was lodged at the Baloch Colony police station under Section 365-B (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel for marriage etc) read with Section 376 (punishment for rape) of the Pakistan Penal Code.