BAHAWALPUR: The Vehari city police have booked two men, arresting one of them, for alleged gang rape of two young women, including a university student, after luring them with online job advertisement, making their objectionable videos and blackmailing them.

According to Vehari district police spokesperson, the alleged rape incidents occurred in November 2023, but the two complainants approached the police on Tuesday last as they were being threatened by the suspects that their videos would be uploaded on social media if they lodged a complaint against them.

One of the complainants is a seventh semester university student, whose father had died and she needed a job for meeting her studies’ expenditure. The other is the daughter of a private security guard and was looking for a job to contribute to the family’s income.

The complainants say that the suspects, who are residents of Railway Colony, Vehari, uploaded an advertisement on social media, offering jobs to young educated women.

The complainants say that when they contacted the suspects on mobile phone, they were called to a place for an “interview”. However, when they reached the place, they suspects subjected them to gang rape, making video clips of the heinous crime.

The women alleged that the suspects told them that they had already raped several girls and if they (the complainants) lodged a complaint against them, they would post the rape videos on social media.

The spokesperson said the suspects continued to blackmail and exploit the complainants for around six months and also extorted Rs12,000 from each of them. The suspects would also force the victims to also bring other girls along, so they could rape and blackmail them too, he added. He said the police have registered FIRs (No 427/24 and 428/24) against the two suspects under sections 376 ii, 292-A and 383 of the Pakistan Penal Code, arresting the main suspect. The other suspect has also been traced, he added.

The spokesperson says that the prime suspect is being interrogated as video clips of other victims are yet to recovered from him.

He said that the medical examination of both victims had been conducted and further action would be taken in the light of its report to be issued by the district headquarters hospital.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2024