RAHIM YAR KHAN: A married woman who was allegedly raped and blackmailed because of a video clip of the rape made by her tormentors, had to bribe lower police staff to get a case registered against the suspects after a senior officer declined to help her in getting justice.

Narrating her ordeal at the local press club where she had come with her husband on Tuesday, ‘N’, a resident of Mauza Bhuta Kot of Sheikh Wahan area, said she worked as a match-maker and was lured to Rahim Yar Khan by a relative on the pretext of visiting a family in Multan for the purpose in May this year.

Instead of taking her to Multan, she said the prime suspect ‘H’ and his friend ‘J’ took her to a house here in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, that was owned by one of their acquaintances.She said at the house, both ‘H’ and ‘J’ raped her in the presence of their friend and the suspects made a video clip of the crime.

The suspects threatened her that they would post the clip on social media if she informed anybody about the rape, she said. She said later the suspects started blackmailing her and threatened her they would sell the video clip if she did not pay them money.

She claimed that she had been giving the suspects money on different occasions by selling her cattle and even jewellery and so far they had extracted around Rs300,000 from her. Meanwhile, she said the suspects sold the video clip to many persons against Rs1,000 each despite taking money from her.

Being unable to arrange more money, she said she approached the Saddar deputy superintendent of police (DSP) with a complaint but he did not listen to her.

Later, she lodged an FIR (No 250/17) on Aug 31, 2017, against the suspects under Section 376 of the Pakistan Penal Code after paying Rs15,000 bribe to a sub-inspector Ehsan and the moharrar of Saddar police station.

After that the police arrested ‘H’ while ‘J’ and the house owner got interim bails. She said now the suspects were forcing her for a “reconciliation” and threatening her with dire consequences if she pursued the case.

She said she did not get a case registered under cyber crime law because she was illiterate and did not know about it.

The district police public relations officer denied all the allegations levelled by ‘N’ against police officials, saying the police would act according to the law in the light of the medical report of ‘N’ that was still awaited.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2017