May 09, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 3, 1429

RAWALPINDI, May 8: A 52-year-old woman alleged here on Thursday that the city police freed a man arrested on her complaint that he had stripped her naked in public on May 4.

Fatima Bibi, a resident of Mandi Syedan Fateh Jang, told journalists in the chamber of her lawyer that Syed Wajid Hussain Shah of Kanial in Fatehjang was named the main accused in the FIR who had two accomplices.

She accused the Saddar Bairooni police of protecting the accused.

She has moved the court of district and sessions judge and sought speedy investigation into the case as she feared for her life, and her son’s, as the accused had threatened to kidnap her teenaged son.

Her FIR, registered under Section 354-A (assault or use of criminal force to woman and stripping her clothes) and Section 379 (punishment for theft) of Pakistan Penal Code, stated that she was standing on Chakri Road on May 4 at around 7pm waiting for transport for Fatehjang when Syed Wajid appeared on the scene and offered her lift as he too was also going to the same town. In his vehicle there were two other men.

Syed Wajid asked her to press her father-in-law to sell his land to him and promised money for her services. She refused because Syed Wajid had earlier tried to grab their land on papers forged with the connivance of one of the sons of her father-in-law.

Her refusal enraged Syed Wajid who allegedly said he would avenge the disgrace she had brought to him in the community by legal battles over the land issue by disrobing her. The three men then drove off with her clothes, mobile phone and hand bag that contained copies of some land documents.