RAWALPINDI: Following the Punjab police’s request to prevent the prime suspect of the motorway gang-rape from leaving the country, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has placed his name on its ‘black list’ and alerted the law enforcement authorities about it at all checkpoints across the country.

The Punjab police, which have been desperately searching for Abid Malhi, the prime suspect in the gang-rape case, had made the request to the FIA and sent the particulars of the suspect to multiple teams which are working to trace his whereabouts.

Capital City Police Officer of Lahore Umer Sheikh told Dawn that the FIA had been asked to prevent Malhi from leaving the country and his name had been placed on the watch list.

He said that since placing the name of a suspect on the Exit Control List (ECL) was a lengthy process, the police immediately informed the FIA at all airports and land and sea check-posts to prevent the ‘most wanted’ suspect from leaving the country.

The CCPO said that police teams were working hard to trace the suspect and hopefully he would be captured soon.

Police teams have been conducting raids on different places in various cities to arrest Malhi, but are still unable to trace his whereabouts.

A senior official of the FIA said that whenever the police asked them to prevent anybody on their wanted list from leaving the country, his name was placed on ‘black list’.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2020