Missing sisters found, three arrested over rape charges

The Sharifabad police found two missing sisters on Wednesday and arrested three men over charges of raping them.

Station investigation officer Jamil Ahmed Siddique said on October 5, an FIR was registered at the Sharifabad police station on the complaint of sisters’ father. In the FIR, he said he went to the room of his daughters, A, 21, and B, 15, but they were not there.

He tried contacting them on their cell phones but was unable to do so, leading him to believe that his daughters had been kidnapped. The police registered an FIR and started investigating the case.

The police officer said they first obtained the sisters’ cell phone records including their messages and tracked down a number which they had frequently called. A police team conducted a raid in the Central district and arrested a man named Danish but the sisters were not present there.

On the information disclosed by Danish during interrogation, another raid was conducted wherein the police found the sisters and arrested two more men, Saad and Burhan.

The two men were shifted to the investigation unit. It was found that the sisters became friends with these men a few months ago on Facebook and WhatsApp. They spoke with them in a separate room where their parents could not hear their conversation.

The three men trapped the sisters by promising to marry them and convinced them into fleeing their home.

On October 5, the girls left their home and were picked by the three men at Sharifabad Phattak.

They took the sisters to a house and raped them.

SIO Siddique said the medical reports of the sisters had confirmed that they were raped.

Wednesday's rescue comes on the heels of Sunday's similar recovery in which three schoolgirls were safely recovered from a Liaquatabad house, three days after they had run away from their homes in Saudabad area of the Malir district.

The girls, as per officials, blamed issues with their parents for their decision to run away.

The worried parents had approached police late on Friday night, saying that they dropped their daughters at school but none of them returned home.

After the school management insisted that the girls – Iqra, Bisma and Rabia, all 15 years old – did not attend classes that day, the families blocked roads in protest. 

After an FIR was lodged at Saudabad Police Station, a team of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) mounted a search and arrested a suspect. The team learnt that the grade ninth students had not been abducted but had left their homes on their own. 

Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Jameel Ahmed of the CIA said police talked to the families and started tracing cellphones being used by the girls. During the course of the investigations, he said, the police tracked Bisma’s cellphone and a mobile phone number from which several calls had been made to the girls’ phones.

The investigators then developed the CDR of the numbers, which were found in the names of Danish and Ijaz. They carried out a raid on the house of Ijaz in Sector 5A, Baldia Town, and caught him, but the girls were not found. 

Ijaz was said to have told the investigators that Danish was his associate and the girls were with him. On the morning of October 16, police carried out a raid on the residence of Danish in Liaquatabad No. 10 and safely recovered all the girls. Danish was however not present at the house. Raids are continuing for his arrest.

The girls were taken to the CIA headquarters, where they said they had left home due to domestic issues and before running away they had consulted with each other and packed clothes in their schoolbags.

They said they had first met Danish and Ijaz at Jinnah Hospital and exchanged their cellphone numbers.

Iqra told the police that she was disturbed because her parents had always had suspicions about her and did not trust her, so much so that they used to check her cellphone messages and beat her badly.

Bisma said her father contracted a second marriage and her mother wanted her to live with her stepmother.

Rabia told the police that her parents used to fight with each other on a daily basis and her mother used to torture her mentally. Unhappy with her life, she said she decided to leave home.

DIG Jameel said the girls, along with Ijaz, appeared before a magistrate, who remanded Ijaz in police remand, and sent the girls sent to Darul Aman. The magistrate ordered that the girls appear at the next hearing, during which police would record their statements under Section 164 of the CrPC. On court orders, medical examinations of the girls would also be conducted.

DIG Jameel further said that parents should not provide cellphones to their young children, a step which should not be taken lightly.

He said the parents must check their children’s cellphone messages so that they were aware of anybody with whom their children were in contact.

He also stressed that the parents should not argue in front of their children, as that left a bad impact on them.