A 25-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped on a train heading to Karachi from Multan last week, it emerged on Monday.

The victim was on board the Bahaudin Zakaria Express when ticket-checkers and other staffers of a private firm subjected her to sexual assault on Friday (May 27), the spokesperson of the Pakistan Railways said in a statement.

A first information report (FIR) has been registered on the complaint of the victim at the Railways Police Station under Sections 377 [punishment for rape] and 34 [common intent] of the Pakistan Penal Code.

According to the FIR, the woman was travelling in an economy class berth when the ticket-checker offered her a seat in the air-conditioned compartment of the train.

Shortly afterwards, he took her to the other compartment where the train staffers took turns to sexually assault the woman and threatened her with dire consequences when she tried to escape.

The women disembarked from the train after reaching Karachi and reported the ordeal to the railways' police, who registered the case and constituted teams to arrest the suspects.

The law enforcers managed to arrest all three suspects today.

Additional police surgeon Summaiya Syed at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre said the victim's medical examination confirmed that she was gang-raped.

Dr Syed said the victim's clothes had been taken into custody, while swab samples were taken for semen serology, DNA profiling and cross-matching.

“We need to know the time of arrival of the train in Karachi as Rohri is located between Multan and Karachi and it will give us an approximate time of the incident,” said Dr Syed.

City Railways Station SHO Asad Unar declined to speak on the incident. However, according to the railways' police spokesperson, Inspector General of Railways Police Faisal Shahkar took notice of the incident.