A first information report (FIR) was yet to be registered on Thursday of an incident of a man exposing himself and assaulting a woman in Karachi’s Gulistan-i-Jauhar, police said a day after the video of the incident went viral on social media and law enforcers began a manhunt for the suspect.

Meanwhile, Sharea Faisal Superintendent of Police (SP) Zafar Siddique Chaanga told Dawn.com that police had been investigating the matter for the past 24 hours but “no concrete progress” had been made with regard to the identification of the suspect.

Police took notice of the incident on Wednesday (yesterday) when a video showing a man groping an unidentified woman in broad daylight on a road in Gulistan-i-Jauhar was widely shared on social media.

The incident was caught on a CCTV camera, wherein a masked man was seen parking his motorcycle before removing his shorts and attempting to grab a passerby woman.

The motorcycle did not have a number plate.

Police said the incident took place in Gulistan-i-Jauhar’s Block 4 on Monday (July 3) around 11am, and the owner of a house outside of which the incident took place had shared the CCTV video on social media.

Subsequently, a police team was formed to investigate the matter.

SP Chaanga told Dawn.com today that the investigators had interviewed some female domestic workers employed in bungalows in the area where the incident took place.

“The initial probe has revealed the woman who was assaulted was also worked as a house servant in some of the bungalows in the same area,” he added. “We are sure that the woman worked in the same neighbourhood but no one from [any of the] residences there has stepped forward to provide any valuable information about her.”

Sharing more details about the probe, he said the police had visited some of the houses in the locality and spoken to a few bike riders “for clues” about the identity of the assaulted woman and the suspect.

Asked about the FIR of the incident, he said it had not been registered at the relevant police station — the Gulistan-i-Jauhar police station — as “the victim has not lodged a case yet for the initiation of legal proceedings”.

He expressed the hope that some progress would be made in the case in a day or two.

Earlier, police said the investigators had met the person who uploaded the video on social media and questioned two private security guards who are said to have witnessed the incident.

After the incident was reported yesterday, Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon said Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had taken “serious notice” of the “shameful act” and directed the Sindh inspector general of police and Karachi additional inspector general of police to “immediately arrest the culprit and strictly deal with him according to the law”.

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