KARACHI: The Sindh High Court was informed by police on Saturday that a teenage boy from Sujawal was sexually assaulted about two and a half years ago and all the three suspects had been arrested.

The court put off hearing of the case after deputy inspector general of Hyderabad and senior superintendent of police Sujawal submitted their report and informed that the prime suspect, a local leader of Pakistan Peoples Party, and his two accomplices had been arrested and the family of the victim had been shifted to a safe place.

SHC Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh had taken suo motu notice of a press report on the gang-rape incident a couple of days before and directed the police officials concerned to submit the report.

The report revealed that the boy was gang raped and filmed about two and a half years ago by the influential suspects who then kept blackmailing the family with the damaging video clip. It stated that the suspects extorted money from the family and even threatened to get their daughter arrested if they failed to meet their demands.

The court directed the DIG and the SSP to carry out impartial investigation into the incident before putting off the hearing of the case.

According to reports, the boy was brutally tortured and sexually assaulted by the chief suspect who was the son of an influential feudal lord of the area and his two accomplices in Darro town in Sujawal district.

Our staff correspondent at Hyderabad adds: The Anti-Terrorism Court, Hyderabad, on Saturday remanded three suspects in the gang-rape case of the teenage boy in police custody for seven days.

The suspects were produced before the court by Darro police. The fourth suspect in the case, a TV journalist, is still at large.

Earlier, judicial magistrate of Mirpur Bathoro had referred the case to ATC as the section invoked in the FIR pertained to Anti-Terrorism Act and thereby its trial by an ATC.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2018