MIRPURKHAS: Three of the 20 suspects booked on Monday for allegedly kidnapping two young women after attacking and ransacking their house in Naokot town were produced in a local court, which remanded them in police custody for three days.

The women, one aged 19 and the other 14, have accused some of the 20 suspects of subjecting them to gang rape in a house where they had been kept for many hours before police recovered them in a raid.

On Tuesday, nine more suspects were arrested while a hunt for the others was under way. All those booked in the case belong to the Tungri clan living in the Hanif Rajput village situated within the town.

Facts collected by police and local reporters suggested that Tungris and Rajputs of the area had been at daggers drawn for about a week over a freewill marriage involving a man from the former and woman from the latter. The couple has gone into hiding to escape wrath of the Tungri clan. On Sunday, about two dozen Tungris, some of them carrying firearms, broke into the Rajput family’s house in Nafees Nagar, ransacked the furniture and fixtures and kidnapped the two women, they said.

The Naokot episode attributed to reaction over a freewill marriage; victims accuse a police officer of complicity

The family claims that the intruders also took away cash and valuables from their house. The victims were recovered the next day in a raid on the house of one, Hayat Tungri, within the village while several hundred enraged members of the Rajput community were holding a protest sit-in on the Naokot-Mirpurkhas road. The women, the elder one married, told the police that several of the kidnappers subjected them to criminal assault in the house.

Mirpurkhas SSP Asad Chaudhry along with the Jhuddo DSP and SHO met the two women, who narrated their ordeal and accused ASI Gulzar Tungri, the in-charge of the Nafees Nagar police post, of connivance with the kidnappers in the whole episode. They disclosed that the kidnappers had taken them to the ASI’s residence first before they were shifted to another [Hayat Tungri’s] house. They also named the alleged rapists.

The SSP assured the Rajput family of protection, cooperation and justice.

PPP MPA Mir Tarique Talpur also visited Naokot and asked the police and administration to extend full cooperation to the affected family and to take the culprits to task.

The victims were not produced in court on Tuesday for their statement under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.PC). The police said the women were not out of the trauma yet, so they would be produced before a magistrate on Wednesday.

Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Haleem Adil Sheikh and other Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leaders as well as activists of various social and religious organisations have strongly condemned the incident and called for invoking the relevant sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act in the case.

Governor takes notice

Sindh Governor Imran Ismail on Tuesday took serious notice of the torture and criminal assault of the two women.

A statement issued from Governor House said that the governor had directed the Sindh inspector general of police to submit to him a complete report of the incident. He said police should sincerely fulfil their responsibility of controlling lawlessness in the province and take measures to ensure arrest of the suspects involved in the Naokot incident.

The governor said that no leniency be shown to the culprits.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2022