August 03, 2008	Sunday	Rajab 30, 1429

KARACHI, Aug 2: An assistant manager of Quaid-i-Azam mausoleum’s security staff, an accountant and a personal assistant to the resident engineer of the mausoleum management board were indicted in a gang-rape case on Saturday.

The additional district and sessions judge-IV, east, Aftab Ahmed Bughio, indicted the three suspects in the gang-rape of an 18-year-old visitor on the premises of Mazar-i-Quaid. They pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case.

The judge summoned the investigation officer and prosecution witnesses and fixed the next hearing for Aug 13.

According to the charge-sheet, the woman and her family members from Lodhran (Punjab) were on a visit to the mausoleum when she was allegedly abducted during a power breakdown on March 15. She was taken to a room where she was forced to take a drugged drink and subjected to gang-rape. The kidnappers kept her in their custody for a day and a half and then threw her at the gate of the mausoleum in the early hours of March 17. She was later spotted in an unconscious state by Rangers personnel, the charge-sheet said.

The case (FIR No 50/2008) was registered at Brigade police station under the Section 365/B of Pakistan Penal Code (the section was inserted through the Protection of Women Act 2006) on the complaint of her father.

An assistant manager of the mausoleum’s security staff was arrested on March 20, the charge-sheet said, adding that there was little doubt about his involvement in the crime because the victim not only identified him while recording her statement with the SHO, the accused was then in police custody, but also identified him in an identification parade conducted in the court of a civil judge and judicial magistrate, east.