A beautician from Islamabad filed a complaint with police saying she was allegedly raped by a taxi driver in a forest area outside Rawalpindi, DawnNews reported on Friday.

An initial medical examination of the 25-year-old victim confirmed that she had been subjected to sexual abuse.

The woman stated in her complaint that she worked at a Chinese beauty parlour in Islamabad and had booked an online cab to go home after work at around 8pm on January 31.

However, the cab dropped her off at the highway, after which she sat in a taxi that had stopped nearby. The victim said she asked the taxi driver to drive her to her home in Islamabad's G-11 sector.

Instead of taking her home, the taxi driver allegedly kept driving around for three to four hours and later brought her to a forest near Rawalpindi's Dhok Qazian at around 1am on February 1.

The victim alleged that the taxi driver then raped her in the forest and despite her cries, continued with the sexual assault.

A first information report (FIR) of the incident was registered under Section 376 (punishment for rape) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) at Rawat police station on the victim's complaint, police said on Friday.

The investigating officer of the case, sub-inspector Khizar Hayat, told DawnNews that police were conducting raids to arrest the accused suspect.

He said police were gathering information about the registration of the vehicle and the suspect would be arrested soon.

Since the beginning of 2018, there has been a marked upsurge in the reporting of sexual abuse cases across Pakistan. The brutal rape and murder of Zainab Ansari in Kasur last month, in particular, shocked the entire country, with #JusticeforZainab becoming the rallying cry in a nationwide drive to end violence against children.