Three men charged with teenage girl’s gang rape remanded in police custody

A judicial magistrate on Tuesday remanded a suspected rapist in police custody till May 17 after he surrendered before the police. The District East judicial magistrate remanded Raza Bugti on the allegation that he along with two others had raped a 15-year-old girl in Gulistan-e-Jauhar.

An FIR (No 163/19) had been lodged under sections 352, 452 and 506-B of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 on behalf of Samreen, the mother of the victim, against three suspects, Bugti, Shaban and Jawwad, at the Gulistan-e-Jauhar police station on March 19. The woman had accused the men of raping her daughter.

According to Gulistan-e-Jauhar SHO Shakeel Sherwani, the case was registered against the three suspects for allegedly subjecting the teenage girl to rape at her residential apartment in Gulistan-e-Jauhar.

The officer noted that two of the nominated suspects, Bugti and Shaban, were arrested after the case was registered, but Jawwad was still at large. The complainant in her initial statement to the police said that her daughter was subjected to gang rape by the three persons and Bugti, who was the president of the apartments’ union, was a key suspect in the case.

The mother alleged that the suspects also warned her that they would throw acid on her daughter if she screamed or told anyone about the incident. But the case took a new turn when an audio call went viral on social media, in which a man calling himself as ASI Rehman of the Gulistan-e-Jauhar police station is heard demanding a bribe from the victim’s mother in exchange for the preparation of a medical report and investigations in her favour.

However, at the end of the phone call, the woman refused to give him money and told the caller that his call had been recorded. The woman said she would not pay a single penny to him as her complaint was genuine.

As the audio went viral on social media, Sindh Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr Syed Kaleem Imam took notice of it and sought a detailed report from the East Zone DIG. Meanwhile, Additional IG Karachi Dr Amir Shaikh also took notice of the video and formed a committee to investigate the case.

District East SSP Ghulam Azfar Mahesar would head the committee, which would record the statements of the victim girl and her mother. The East SSP said the committee would carry out the probe with the help of modern techniques. Further investigations are under way.