Police fail to arrest principal accused in girl’s parading case

PESHAWAR: The principal accused is still at large in the Sharifan Bibi case, who was allegedly paraded naked in the streets of her village in Dera Ismail Khan for her brother's alleged crime as the police said efforts continue for nabbing him.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Syed Afsar Shah again gave one month time to the police for arresting the principal accused in the case. Interestingly, several months had passed in adjournment of the case after the police was requesting further time for arresting the accused. This time SSP investigation Khalid Usman appeared in the court and requested for further time for nabbing the accused.

On previous hearing, the chief justice asked the police officers to tell the court if any assistance in nabbing the accused was needed and the court would help the police. As per the Dera Ismail Khan Police investigation and progress report submitted in the court through Human Rights Cell of the Peshawar High Court (PHC), the police claimed efforts were being made to arrest the main accused, Sajawal.

On the previous hearing, Qazi Muhammad Anwar, who appeared on behalf of Sharifan Bibi, informed the bench that the principal accused was still at large. After the incident the PTI's Member National Assembly Dawar Kundi sent a letter to PTI Chief. He alleged that KP Minister Ali Amin Gandapur was sheltering the culprits. The PTI chief Imran Khan took notice of the serious allegations against own minister and served a notice to his MNA.

The PHC had disposed of the writ petition filed by the victim girl with the direction to the IGP Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to ensure submission of progress and investigation report in the case after every 15 days to the Human Rights Cell.

The police stated in the report that eight out of the nine accused had been arrested in the case. It claimed in the report that they had seized 10 mobile phones from a suspect, Rahmatullah, who the girl claimed filmed her with his mobile phone while being paraded naked.

In the petition, the 16-year old Sharifan Bibi requested the court to direct the provincial government and the police chief to provide security to her and her family, recover her video from the possession of one of the accused and inclusion of his name in the first information report as he had filmed her when she was paraded naked.