The Muzaffargarh police last night arrested three men after booking four for allegedly raping a minor, blackmailing her and forcing her to abort the resulting pregnancy, it emerged on Friday.

A first information report (FIR) was filed by the girl’s mother late Wednesday night at the city’s Rangpur police station. It invoked sections 376 (punishment for rape) and 292 (sale, etc, of obscene books, etc) of the Pakistan Penal Code. The criminal complaint names three men and a woman in the case.

The complainant states that at 5pm on March 10 this year, her 14-15-year-old daughter was alone at her home while the family had gone to a local event. During that time, the “suspects entered our home and took [the girl] inside a room at gunpoint”, she added.

The mother further said that one of the suspects raped her daughter “at gunpoint” while a second “kept filming nude videos and taking pictures on his mobile phone” of the minor. She added that both had threatened the girl that they would “make her naked videos go viral on social media and kill” her if she told anyone about them.

The FIR further stated that the men would often rape the minor, adding that on September 3, both the men found the girl alone at her home and entered. One of the men took her side inside a room at gunpoint and raped her while the second “stood guard and filmed videos and took pictures on his mobile phone”, the FIR said.

It added that during the alleged rape, the girl felt a sharp pain in her back and was rushed to the hospital where a quack, who is one of the suspects, aborted her four-month pregnancy.

When her family returned came back home and found the victim missing, they went out and found her at the quack’s [hospital], the FIR stated.

The police have arrested three of the four suspects.

Child abuse rampant

At least 12 children were sexually abused ever day during the first six months of this year, according to data compiled by the rights group Sahil published last month. Out of the total 2,227, three-fourths of the total cases were reported from Punjab.

According to some reports, Punjab has been a tough province to live in due to the high incidence of sexual violence.

Around a year ago, the then-Punjab home minister Attaullah Tarar had declared an “emergency” amid rising incidents of sexual abuse against women and children, saying some four to five women were being raped daily across the province.