PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Thursday directed the Dera Ismail Khan police to expedite efforts for the early arrest of the prime suspect in the teenage girl stripping case.

Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Qalandar Ali Khan ordered the production of the relevant police officer’s report in this respect on Feb 22 and adjourned the hearing until then.

Police DIG (headquarters) Sher Akbar and AIG (legal) Falak Nawaz told the court that the police had already arrested eight of the nine suspects and had been making efforts for the arrest of the ninth and prime absconding suspect, Sajawal.

They submitted progress report in the case.

About the allegations levelled by the victim and her family that the incident was recorded on cellphone by local resident Rehmatullah, the report said according to the Forensic science Laboratory report of four mobile phones of the main suspect, no video or picture of the victim was found.

Police report tells PHC that no video or picture of girl found on prime suspect’s cellphones

On Nov 22, a high court bench headed by the chief justice had disposed of a petition filed by the alleged victim of stripping, with the direction to the IGP to submit progress report of the investigation to the PHC’s Human Rights Cell director for the perusal of the chief justice.

In the petition, the girl had made several prayers to the court seeking protection, recovery of film allegedly made by a local resident, and the arrest of prime suspect Sajawal.

In the progress report, the IGP has claimed that the police have initiated proceedings for the attachment of immovable property of the absconding suspect.

He added that eight of the nine suspects named by the girl had been arrested by the police.

In the progress report, it is stated that the police had had taken seven mobile phones of Rehmatullah suspect and send the same to the FSL, Peshawar, for tracing the video clips but the result was received in negative. Four other phones were also taken from Rehmatullah, whose report was also negative regarding the presence of any footage of the occurrence.

The girl had claimed that around two years ago, the prime suspect had blamed her brother for handing over a cellphone to a female member of their family and despite his denial on oath, the panchayat (jirga) had ordered her brother to pay a fine of Rs300,000 to them.

She added that despite the decision of the panchayat, the accused led by Sajawal had paraded her naked in the village.

The girl formally told the magistrate that she had gone to a pond to fetch water in the morning along with some other women and on return, the nine accused torn her clothes and threw away the shawl given by the accompanying women.

The girl that initially, the local police didn’t cooperate with his family members and even refused to register FIR but did it only after the local people protested.

She said before registering FIR of the incident, the police had booked her brother and uncle in a concocted case to pressure the family not to pursue the present case.

In the initial FIR, the police had only mentioned that the girl was taken inside a residence and beaten and was not paraded in the streets.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2018