THATTA: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s parliamentary leader in Sindh Assembly Haleem Adil Sheikh on Friday demanded justice for a victim of kidnapping and gang rape and urged police to nominate in the FIR former chairman of a union council whose instigation was said to be at play in the crime.

The victim, a 22-year-old married woman, was kidnapped and held hostage in Jati area for 10 days during which she was routinely subjected to gang rape but police lodged the case only against three suspects instead of the five as told by the victim. Moreover, police also extorted bribe from the victim’s father for lodging the case.

Sheikh, who paid a visit to Wazir Jat village in Jati coastal belt to express sympathies with the victim and assure her and her family of justice, said that growing cases of rape, kidnapping, child abuse and general breakdown of law and order in Sindh proved the Pakistan Peoples Party government had utterly failed.

He said that it was very unfortunate that the victim remained hostage for 10 days and suffered cruelty of a wadera and his henchmen but nobody dared come to her rescue as in reality the influential waderas had established states within state where they did as they pleased without any fear of being caught.

The victim and her parents told media persons that police had refused to nominate the wadera and a couple who had facilitated him in her abduction and gang rape.

The parents said that they were migrant farm workers who had arrived in the area a fortnight ago to work in paddy fields. A week back, some masked men armed with weapons stormed their makeshift thatched hut, dragged their daughter away and brought her to an isolated place where three men subjected her to gang rape, they said.

They said that they kept searching for her for a week and finally approached Jati police through some civil society members. Finally, police registered the FIR against the three suspects but flatly refused to nominate the co-accused wadera who was former chairman of UC Maro Bola Khan, and his two facilitators.

Sheikh put chador on the victim, paid her Rs25,000 cash and vowed to recommend to Pakistan Baitul Mal to give her Rs60,000 more within a week.

He said that it was a shame that elected representatives of the area did not bother to visit the victim. These people forgot their poor voters after becoming assembly members through their votes, he said, adding that PTI stood by every oppressed and suppressed citizen of Pakistan.

HYDERABAD: Haleem Adil Sheikh also visited the bereaved family of a real estate developer, Nauman Rasheed Rajput, in Hyderabad, APP adds.

Mr Rajput had reportedly committed suicide under immense stress caused by, what the family believed, blackmailing by some unknown persons.

Speaking to local reporters after offering his condolences to the family in the Liaquat Colony area, Sheikh named an accounts officer and claimed that he was blackmailing Mr Rajput.

In a voice recording, the accounts officer could be heard threatening Nauman Rajput, he argued, and said the accounts officer could also be heard saying that he was influential enough to help an SP, DSP or SHO get posting of his choice.

The PTI leader also claimed that he and others knew the person on the back of the accounts officer. “The person backing him is facing a probe by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in the fake bank accounts case,” he said.

Mr Sheikh asked Hyderabad SSP Adeel Hussain Chandio to investigate the blackmailer’s link with Mr Rajput’s suicide. He said the Rajput family tried to lodge an FIR but the police were not obliging them.

Later, Mr Sheikh along with the Rajput family visited Sakhi Pir police station to meet DSP Ghulam Abbas Gadahi and SHO Parial Morio and asked them to register the FIR.

Advocate Bhagwandas Bheel han­ded over an application to the police officers for the registration of the case.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2020