PESHAWAR, Sept 1: A girl allegedly forced into prostitution in Punjab has moved the Peshawar High Court requesting a retrial of six accused who were acquitted during her disappearance.

The victim, Ms Shabnam, has also requested the court to order the trial of three other accused persons who had not been tried along with the main accused.

The victim has filed a writ petition through advocate Fazal Ilahi under Article 199 of the constitution read with section 561 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

A two-member bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice Tariq Pervez and Justice Jehanzeb Raheem took up for preliminary hearing the writ petition filed by Ms Shabnam on Wednesday.

The bench directed the additional advocate general, Mohammad Saeed Khan, to prepare the case on the point whether at this stage the acquitted accused and the three other accused now charged by the victim could be tried afresh together.

Mr Saeed said it was a complicated case and he needed some time to prepare it. He added that six of the respondents in the writ petition had already been acquitted by the trial court, whereas three other women had now been charged by the petitioner.

The bench observed that the case had taken a new turn as the acquitted respondents had been tried during the disappearance of the petitioner and now the petitioner had been recovered and she had been testifying against them. Moreover, the bench added, three other persons, who had not faced trial, had now been charged by her.

The petitioner was allegedly abducted in 2001 in Nowshera district and was sold out in Punjab where she was forced to prostitution. She escaped from the brothel in Rawalpindi more than a month ago and during her absence, six of the accused were tried and acquitted by the Nowshera district and sessions judge on Dec 8, 2004.

The petitioner, hailing from Pirpai village of Nowshera, had now charged nine persons, including five females of kidnapping her and using her in different brothels of Punjab. She claimed that on the day of local government elections in Nowshera on July 2, 2001, she had gone to a polling station with her mother. At that time she was a student of Class 6. She alleged that one of her classmates took her outside the station. She alleged that at some distance a former lady councillor, Ms Nasreen, her two daughters and a man named Tanveer were waiting in a car.

The girl claimed that she was pushed in the car and she was drugged as a result of which she fell unconscious. She added that when she gained consciousness she was in a brothel. She escaped from the brothel in Rawalpindi four years after being kidnapped.

During the girl’s disappearance, her relatives had charged the six accused persons who were later acquitted.