BAHAWALNAGAR: The district police claimed on Saturday to have busted a gang allegedly involved in extorting money from people through rape and blackmail, recovering video clips of the victims, along with the “extorted amount”.

District Police Officer (DPO) Quddus Baig said the three arrested members of the gang would allegedly befriend women, rape them and later blackmail them by secretly making video clips of the crime.

He said the suspects extracted Rs7 million from a woman, a resident of Khichiwala, through rape and blackmail.

According to the DPO, on receiving information about the gang’s activities, he constituted a team that arrested the three members of the gang during a raid, recovering several videos of rape victims from them, along with the extorted amount.

During initial interrogation, the DPO said, the suspect confessed to having been involved in the crime.

KILLER HELD: The police on Saturday worked out the kidnapping-cum-murder of a 12-year-old child in three hours of the incident.

The police said they arrested the suspect in the Fateh Kot area within three hours of the kidnapping of Umar Rasool. Suspect Manzoor Ahmed told the police that he strangled Umar Rasool to take revenge for his son’s murder.

He said that 11 years ago, Umar Rasool’s father Ghulam Rasool with an accomplice Yaseen abducted his nine-year-old son, Hussain, and killed him after raping him.

The police clarified that an FIR was registered in 2011 of rape and murder of Hussain but the police cleared Ghulam Rasool in the case after investigation.

Manzoor wanted to take revenge and when he got an opportunity, he killed the son of Umar Rasool.

On the indication of Manzoor, the body of the child was recovered and handed over to the family after medico-legal and further investigation was underway.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2021