ISLAMABAD, July 28: Military authorities are investigating a 30-year-old woman’s gang rape allegedly committed by three men of the Mujahid Battalion in Azad Kashmir, Director-General of Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan told Dawn on Thursday.

The ISPR chief rejected the claim of the victims’s family that a case had been registered against three military officials.

Answering a question about a claim of the victims’s family that army was pressurising them to withdraw the case, the DG ISPR said: “As no such case has been registered with any police station in Azad Kashmir therefore there is no question that the family was being pressurised by the army for its withdrawal.”

He, however, said the military authorities had initiated thorough investigation of the case and if any one found guilty would be punished.

This is the first alleged rape in Azad Kashmir in which military personnel have been accused.

According to international media the alleged victim — a divorced woman from the village of Palri, 100km north of Muzaffarabad — had gone to collect firewood on July 15 when she was raped by three men.

Hundreds of people from Palri and neighbouring villages reportedly staged a protest in nearby Athamuqam on Wednesday, demanding the culprits be arrested by Friday and brought to justice.