PESHAWAR, Jan 31: A local anti-terrorism court on Thursday acquitted all the 13 accused, including three policemen, of the gang rape of a Karak girl over a lack of evidence.

Judge Asghar Ali Shah ordered acquittal of the suspects, observing that the prosecution had failed to prove charges against them and that the evidence on record, too, did not connect them with the commission of the offence.

The accused were Naseebullah, Qamar Ali, Mohammad Kareem, Shakeel Ahmad, Mohammad Iqbal, Alamzeb, Gul Marjan, Sardar Ali, Nazar Khan, Ms Guleena, former SHO of Takhti Nusrati police station Pir Mohsin Shah, sub-inspector Amir Khan and assistant sub-inspector Hakeem Khan.

The girl was allegedly kidnapped when a police party raided her house on July 30, 2010. She remained untraced for over a year until she fled on Sept 19, 2011 when her alleged kidnappers were shifting her to another place.

Following her escape, she charged 13 people, including some policemen, for kidnapping and raping her.

Her brother, Alamzeb, was also killed outside a court at Takhte Nusrati in Karak district on Dec 9, 2011, allegedly by the brother of one of the suspected policemen.

The trial in the murder case is still underway before ATC.

The chief justice of the Peshawar High Court had taken notice of the case in Dec 2011 after he came to know that a procession was taken out against the judiciary and the victim when her brother was killed near the courtroom. The court had then ordered to shift trial of the case to Peshawar and had also ordered the provincial government to provide residence to the victim and her family in Peshawar.

The case had taken several twists and turns as the girl had given birth to a girl in early 2012. To ascertain her parentage, DNA tests of all accused men were conducted but none of them proved to be biological father of that baby. Later, the girl failed the polygraph test.

Following the killing of her brother Alamzeb, the high court had also suspended 26 police officials, including the Karak district police officer in Dec 2011. However, they were restored in June last year.

Farmanullah Khattak, Shahid Qayyum, Saifur Rehman and some others, lawyers for the accused, said the statements given by the girl on different occasions were in conflict with each other.

They added that the prosecution could not produce evidence against the accused except the assertions of the girl from time to time which were also self-contradictory.

The lawyers said several inquiries were conducted in this case by different police officials and even in those inquiries the accused were not found involved in the commission of the offence.

Child rights activist Anees Jillani and lawyer Suryia Jabeen appeared for the victim and said on the basis of some minor discrepancies in the statements of the girl, the accused could not be absolved of the charges.

They insisted that she had remained in the captivity of the accused in different locations.