TOBA TEK SINGH: Faisalabad City Police Officer Umar Saeed Malik says that Section 365 (kidnap) of PPC has also been included in the first information report in the BDS student girl case whereas Section 342 for keeping the victim in illegal confinement is already there in the FIR.

In a statement on Friday, he said the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) cyber crime wing had separately registered a case against the main suspect under different sections of the Prevention of the Electronic Crime Act (PECA).

Mr Malik said the car used in the girl’s kidnap and the weapons had been recovered; however, police had yet to recover mobile phone sets of the girl while analyses of CCTV footage and forensic audit were yet to be done.

SP Hafiz Kamran Ali said the main suspect and his accomplices had locked the house from outside to pose that they were out of house; however, police traced them inside the house through their mobile phone locations.

Meanwhile, the second daughter of the main suspect, who was at large, approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to get the pre-arrest bail, showing her residence in Islamabad.

On Friday, Faisalabad Judicial Magistrate Ali Raza issued another three-day physical remand for four accomplices of the main suspect on the request of Faisalabad’s women police.

Five-day physical remand for the main suspect was issued by the same court on Thursday while his four accomplices were on two days physical remand, which ended on Friday.

The main suspect’s second wife is also under arrest and is in jail on judicial remand.

The Faisalabad Women Police Station on Aug 16 had booked 15 suspects for abduction, torture, extortion and sexual assault on the complaint of a final year dentistry student after the city police officer took notice of incident that reportedly occurred on Aug 8. The video of the torture went viral, resulting in outrage on mainstream media as well as social media.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2022