KARACHI: Five-year-old rape victim faces health complications
By Arman Sabir
KARACHI, April 30: A five-year-old girl was brutally raped at a vacant house in Sohrab Goth by a youth who was later captured by the area people and handed over to the police. The minor girl was in a serious condition, but the family took her away from the Civil Hospital. If she was not brought back to hospital, her injuries might develop complications, a doctor who had examined the girl said.
Police said the alleged rapist, Shaukat Khokhar, 18, was a labourer and on the day of the incident, April 28, he was working at an under-construction house. Shaukat also used to offer swing rides to children to augment his income, and most neighbourhood children were familiar with him.
The victim, along with other children, was playing on the swing while Shaukat worked at a nearby house. As the children returned home, the minor girl was lured into the vacant house at around 2.30pm, where Shaukat brutally raped her and fled, leaving her unconscious.
When the girl’s mother noticed that her daughter had not returned home, she asked the other children, who told her that she might have stayed on at the swing.
The mother, along with other area people, went to the under-construction house and found her daughter unconscious. She brought the girl back home and waited for her husband, who returned in the evening.
The father of the girl, who is also a labourer, was told that the girl was bleeding. The parents took her to a clinic, from where they were referred to a government hospital. Later, the parents came to the Civil Hospital, from where they were referred to the police surgeon’s office, the only place in the city of 16 million people where rape cases are being examined for the past six months. “We did not have any idea that medical examination of such cases is conducted at this office. We were late and no one was ready to provide first aid. All the while my daughter was continuously bleeding,” the father of the victim was quoted as saying who managed to get to the police surgeon’s office after a delay of more than nine hours at around 11pm.
The girl was admitted to the Civil Hospital, but the family took her back home the next day without getting proper treatment. Doctors were of the view that the girl’s examination showed serious injuries, and if she did not get proper treatment, she might develop complications as she grew old.
The SHO of the Sohrab Goth police station, Rustam Khatak, said: “The alleged rapist is in police custody and during initial interrogation, he told police that he was under a spell [when he committed the crime].”
He said that a case, FIR No.184/07, was registered against the alleged rapist, Shaukat Khokhar, under sections 375(vi) and 376 of Protection of Women (Amendment) Act 2007. It was the first FIR in Gadap Town under the PWA, he added.
