PESHAWAR: Pressure on rape victims' family to withdraw case
By Shafiq Ahmad
PESHAWAR, May 26: The family of two women, who were sexually assaulted in Chughalpura locality three days ago, is being pressurised by the accused to reach an out-of-court settlement.
Noorzada, whose eight months pregnant wife and teenaged sister-in-law were the victims, told Dawn on Wednesday that the landlord whose son had committed the crime along with his two accomplices, had been sending elders to put pressure on him and his family to withdraw rape complaint and accept compensation.
"But I want justice and I have full confidence in Allah Almighty," he said. Police have arrested one Fazle Rabbi, whereas the other two accused, Danish and Fayyaz, named in the FIR are absconding.
Noorzada, a rickshaw driver, said that he wanted justice because nothing else could compensate the agony and humiliation suffered by his pregnant wife and 14-year-old sister-in-law.
It is alleged that in the FIR police mentioned the age of the girl as 19-20 years which may help the accused. With eyes full of tears, the man said that he had been shattered by the crime as it came a few months after the death of his infant daughter who was born five years after his marriage.
He claimed that on Saturday evening he had asked Danish, Fayyaz and Fazle Rabbi not to smoke hashish in front of his house, but Danish threatened to punish him for daring to stop him from smoking.
"On the night between Saturday and Sunday, the three came to his one-room house and beat him up severely," Noorzada alleged. He said the accused threw his belonging out of the house and dragged his pregnant wife to a Hujra of Qadir Khan, adding that sometime later they also forced his sister-in-law at gunpoint to accompany them to the place.
He said that the girl had come to his house to help her pregnant sister who had been sick and not in a position to work. The sisters have now shifted to their father's home because they could not live in the house after the humiliation and the owner of the house had locked the place and was not allowing them to return, the father of the women said.
"Yes, we all raped the wife of Noorzada," confessed Fazle Rabbi at the Chamkani police station. But he blamed Danish for forcing him and Fayyaz to commit the crime because they were the poorest people in the locality and could not afford to do anything against the influential family.
