25 December 2004	Saturday	12 Ziqa'ad 1425

MUZAFFARABAD, Dec 24: Police in Kotli district of Azad Kashmir have intensified hunt for three accused in a rape case. The teenage victim of the crime died on Thursday after setting herself on fire.

"We are after the culprits and would shortly bring them to book," the SP of Kotli, Yasin Qureshi, told Dawn on Friday. The 17-year-old of Ankora village in district Kotli was allegedly kidnapped on Saturday and sexually assaulted by three men, according to the FIR lodged by her paternal uncle on Wednesday, three days after the incident, in Sensa police station.

After committing the heinous crime, the accused threw the girl outside her uncle's house at 5am on Sunday. Later, the girl went to the nearby house of her aunt and set herself on fire in the kitchen.

When the girl's uncle and grandmother entered the kitchen to rescue her, they found her engulfed in flames and screaming that they should let her die, the FIR said.

SP Qureshi told Dawn that the victim's relatives did not inform the police of the incident and instead took her to PIMS in Islamabad and from there to the POF hospital in Taxila on account of her serious condition.

"Police received information that a girl had tried to commit suicide following which an official was sent to Ankora village to verify. Since the girl was in Taxila by that time, the official went there to record her statement," the SP said, adding that the girl told the official that she had been raped by three men, two of whom she identified as Ikram, son of Alam, and Atif, son of Moazzam.

The condition of the girl did not allow a medical check-up and she died on Thursday. Asked if the rape had been confirmed in the post-mortem report, he said the report was yet to be provided to them. The SP said that the late registration of the case provided an opportunity to the culprits to escape.