KARACHI: Rape cases register 21.5pc rise in six months
By S. Raza Hassan
KARACHI, Sept 19: An alarming increase of 21.5 per cent in rape cases was witnessed in the first half of this year as compared to the corresponding period of 2002, according to the Sindh police statistics.
A total of 42 cases under Zina/Hudood Ordinance 1979 were registered in the first six months of 2003 as compared to 61 cases in the corresponding span of 2002.
As many as eight cases were registered under the ZHO in July 2002 while a total of seven cases were reported in April, May and December.
During the current year, highest number of cases (10) was reported in May.
The figures compiled by the police department do not specify the nature of crime (sexual offence) committed, but the police said that most of the cases pertained to rape.
Apart from the reported cases, an unspecific number of such ghastly incidents go unreported where victims do not approach the police to get an FIR registered for fear of humiliation.
In such a case, a couple who had hired a taxi outside the Aladdin Park on main Rashid Minhas Road were late kidnapped by three men and the girl was subjected to gang-rape at an unspecified place.
Though the fear-stricken couple remained tight-lipped, they took a reporter into confidence for information about the incident so that the people, especially couples, should remain alert while visiting such places.
“Following the publication of the story, the police on their part are trying to nab the suspects”, SHO Aziz Bhatti Zahid Husain claimed.
However, unwillingness on the part of the victims to share information about the incident with the police is proving to be a major impediment in the investigation, a senior police official remarked.
On Dec 7, 2001, a rape incident took place inside the Aladdin park in which a security in charge and the then administrator of the park were allegedly involved.
An FIR pertaining to the case was lodged at the Gulistan-i-Jauhar police station on Dec 19, 2001, against the then administrator of the park, and security in charge Arif Iqbal and two others.
A few weeks after registration of the case, the security in charge was murdered by some unknown persons in Hyderabad, a police official relating to the investigation recalled.
However, the main accused in the case, Zamir Siddiqui obtained a bail before arrest from the court of the ADJ East. Since then, the case is pending in the court, the police said.
Among some of the reported cases, a most recent one was gang-rape of a 10-year-old girl in Model Colony and another case of a six-year-old girl in the jurisdiction of Saudabad police.
The Model Colony victim had gone through a horrific ordeal as she was raped by four men.
Police have arrested two of the suspects. The SHO of Model Colony, Farhat Kamal, told Dawn that the main suspect in the case, Yaqoob, was arrested from Sakrand, where he had taken refuge with a landlord. However, two absconding suspects are yet to be apprehended, the police said.
The six-year-old girl was subjected to the same ordeal by a suspect who left her in bushes in Saudabad after she fell unconscious.
She was shifted to a hospital and police later arrested the suspect on an information provided by the girl.
In another recent incident, two women were assaulted by six suspects in Orangi Town. The police claimed to have arrested four suspects in the case.
Apart from the rape cases, a sodomy case with a 12-year- old boy in Shah Faisal Colony was reported in which policemen were involved.
During the previous year, at least three major incidents were reported.
On April 1, 2002, two sisters were raped at their Ramswami home in front of their father and brother by five men, including two policemen and an ex-policeman.
Later, the police arrested Ismatullah, a constable posted at Saddar Town, Malik Safeer, a dismissed policeman, Kashif, a laundry shop-owner, and Malik Qamar Iqbal, a constable of the CIA Saddar, for raping two sisters.
However, their accomplice and the mastermind of the incident, Malik Hasnat, son of Inspector Malik Ghulam Shabbir Awan, has also been arrested.
The gang of five had barged into the flat of Abdus Sattar, in Ramswami and held the family hostage at gunpoint. The intruders outraged the modestly of Sattar’s two daughters — a 19-year-old maid and a 22-year-old divorcee — in front of their father and brother.
The police, who first refused to register the case on the complaint of the father of the ill-fated women, later arrested Malik Safeer, Mohammad Kashif, and Ismatullah, involved in the ghastly incident.
A police official associated with the case told Dawn that on April 30, the absconder in the case Malick Hasnat appeared before a court and submitted a medical certificate showing that he was under treatment at a hospital in Islamabad when the incident took place.
In a similar incident in mid-August, a mother of two was found with acid burns outside her residence in Neelam Colony, Clifton. The woman was crying for help. She was taken to a hospital where her husband was told that his wife had been raped.
According to her, she was given a sedative in a cup of tea at a faith-healer’s house and she fell unconscious. She was taken to somewhere in Mian Chunnu by three policemen where she was kept for more than a week and repeatedly raped. However, she managed to escape and reached home where the incident took place.
On Sept 9, three armed men posing themselves as police officials entered a house in Kashmir Colony in the limits of Mahmoodabad police station, and took a girl to a house in Defence. They raped her and dumped her near Golden Towers subsequently as they assumed her dead.
