LAHORE, March 8: A Supreme Court two-member bench on Thursday ordered Faisalabad city police officer Bilal Siddique Kamyana to arrest and produce on March 15 the main accused in gang rape case, allegedly a close friend of Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan.

The bench was hearing a suo motu case when victim Samina Akhtar alleged that police were reluctant to arrest main accused Asghar Ali due to his relations with the law minister. The bench comprised Justice Jawad S Khwaja and Justice Amir Muslim Hani.

Faisalabad D-type colony police had registered a case of gang rape on application of Samina Akhtar against five accused Asghar Ali, Ansar Ali, Muhammad Ahsan, Tariq Ali and Karam Husain.

According to FIR, Asghar Ali had invited Samina Bibi to his office for giving her job and later he and his four friends raped her.

The Lahore High Court had granted bail to all accused and the victim challenged the order by filing an appeal with the SC. The apex court converted her appeal into suo motu proceedings and sent two of the accused persons Ansar Ali and Muhammad Ahsan to jail and ordered the police to also produce the remaining accused.

On Thursday, the investigation officer produced Tariq Ali and Karam Husain and informed the court that main accused Asghar Ali was yet to be arrested. At this the bench summoned Faisalabad CPO Bilal Siddique Kamyana within two hours.

The CPO when appeared tried to convince the court that police were making hectic efforts to arrest the accused. At this, the victim told the court that Asghar Ali was a friend of law minister and frequently witnessed with him on some television channels.

However, Kamyana said on oath that the accused was not the friend of the law minister and would be arrested soon. The victim also complained that the police at the behest of accused party were harassing the witnesses of gang-rape incident. She said a life attempt was also made on her; however, she received a minor bullet injury.

During the course of hearing, a senior lawyer, Siddique Kamyana, also father of the CPO, tried to save his son from the hard hitting questions of the court. He said his son was an LLM degree holder and an honest police officer.

The judges, however, snubbed the lawyer and said they were not sitting in the court to hear the stories about honesty of his son. Justice Khwaja asked Advocate Kamyana to sit silently.

The CPO assured the court that stern action would be taken against police officers involved in harassment of the case witnesses.

The bench adjourned further hearing till March 15 and ordered the CPO to produce the main accused in any case.

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