KARACHI, Jan 16: A nongovernmental organisation that provides relief to rape victims has urged the authorities to expedite the investigations in the Aladdin rape case, before any other witness is also murdered.

Amaullah, a representative of the NGO, War Against Rape (WAR), held the indifference of police responsible for the killing of the main witness in the case. He demanded that the other witnesses be ensured security.

He said the dead body of the witness, Arif Iqbal, was found by the SITE police of Hyderabad on Jan 9, and according to the postmortem report he had been strangulated two days earlier.

He said that the main accused of the Aladdin Park rape case, Zamir Siddiqui, and two other men had been mentioned in the FIR of the Arif Iqbal murder case registered by the victim’s brother, Arshad Iqbal.

WAR had demanded that the investigation of the case be taken from the Gulistan-i-Jauher police due to its indifferent attitude and be given to the Crime Branch. But instead the investigation is now being conducted by the CIA.

The NGO says that nearly a month has passed but the accused has not been arrested, even the IG’s order to the effect that the accused be arrested within three days, issued over a week ago, has not yet been carried out.

The NGO representative said that efforts were being made to ensure that the SHO of the SITE police station Hyderabad, or his assistant, Qudratullah, could attend the court in Karachi on Jan 25, when the next hearing of the rape case would be held.

He said that last month a 17 year-old girl was taken to the administrative office of the park where the girl was raped by Zamir Siddiqui. He said that Mr Siddiqui was a government servant and had also served in the KMC. Arif and another park guard had taken the girl and her friend to the office. Now Arif, who was a witness in the rape case, had been murdered.

He urged the authorities to initiate a probe to see if there was any link between the murder of Arif and the rape incident. He said that after the murder of Arif, the security of the victim and other witnesses to the rape incident had become even more important.