NOWSHERA, July 8: Senior judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Rana Bhagwan Das, has taken suo motu notice of the alleged kidnapping of a girl from Nowshera and forcing her into prostitution. The judge has ordered the NWFP IGP to submit a detailed report on the case by July 12. The girl has filed an appeal before the Peshawar High Court requesting for re-opening her case because during her absence, the trial court had acquitted the six accused charged with kidnapping her.

It is learnt that IGP Riffat Pasha has assigned the investigation to SP (Investigation) Ghulam Hussain and DIG Mardan Range Dr Suleman will supervise the probe.

Dr Suleman confirmed to Dawn that Justice Rana Bhagwan Das had taken notice of the issue and ordered completion of a thorough inquiry by July 12. He stated that the statement of the victim had already been recorded under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code before the court of a local magistrate.

The girl, hailing from Pirpai village of Nowshera, addressed a press conference four days ago and narrated her ordeal. She accused some people of kidnapping her and taking her to different brothels of Punjab.

She claimed that on the day of local government elections in Nowshera on July 2, 2001, she had gone to a polling station with her mother. At that time, she was a student of class 6. She said one of her class fellows had taken her outside the station. At some distance, a former woman councillor, Ms Nasreen, and her two daughters and a man named Tanveer were in a car.

The girl claimed that she had been pushed in the car. A drug injection, she said, left her unconscious. When she gained consciousness, she was in a brothel, the girl said.

She escaped from a brothel in Rawalpindi four years after she had been kidnapped.

During her disappearance, the relatives of the girl had charged six persons.

However, they were acquitted by the Nowshera district and sessions judge on Dec 8, 2004, as the girl could not be found and there was no evidence against them.