SUKKUR: The female polio worker, who was sexually assaulted four days ago in Allah Bakhsh Jakhrani village in Jacobabad, was declared ‘Kari’ by her husband, who drove her out of his home and snatched her three children from her on Saturday after she confirmed in her statement before a judge a day ago that she had been assaulted.

However, the victim’s lawyers Nisar Ahmad Mugheri and Zahid Ali Soomro submitted a petition to the district and sessions court for the recovery of her children and they were reunited with her children on the intervention of the court.

The polio worker told local journalists at the court after reuniting with her children that on Wednesday the suspect abducted her at gunpoint when she was returning after administering polio drops to children in the last house on her list along with her team head. The suspect threatened the team head he would shoot him dead if he followed them, she said.

She said that he took her into a jungle on the edge of the village where three other men were already standing with their faces covered. One of the accomplices filmed her while the suspect sexually assaulted her, she said.

She said that the suspect also subjected her to torture and she still bore its marks on her body. “After the assault, he let me go. I came back to the village but no villager provided me refuge,” she said.

She said that she could only identify the suspect, who was now in police custody, but she could not identify his three accomplices as their faces were completely covered.

She said that after the incident, her husband drove her out of his house and snatched her three innocent daughters from her, who were soon reunited with her on the intervention of the court.

“We are a very low-income family. I work as polio worker and my husband earns his livelihood as transporter of small goods through his hand-cart,” she said.

She appealed to Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari to help her and provide her justice as her life had been ruined after the assault incident.

The victim’s counsel Nisar Ahmad Mugheri said that the SSP and the DC had utterly failed to maintain writ of the district administration. He and his team were trying to get sections of Anti-Terrorism Act incorporated in the FIR because “polio poses a serious threat to the lives of innocent children and harassing polio workers is tantamount to terrorism that hampers work of polio vaccination”, he said.

Advocate Zahid Hussain Soomro said that the district administration and law enforcement agencies should provide protection to the victim.

He appealed to the government and social welfare organisations to provide the victim a government job so that she could feed her children. It was not her fault that she had been sexually assaulted at gunpoint, so people of the city including her husband and the victim’s family should stand by her in her difficult time, he said.

Suspect produced in court

Mauladad police produced the suspect in the court of the second additional sessions judge and judicial magistrate, Nisar Ahmed Shar, who remanded him in police custody for seven days.

The court ordered police to take samples of the suspect and submit its medical report to the court whenever it was released.

PPP MPA Sher Mohammad Mugheri demanded that the district administration arrest all the remaining suspects in the case, and promised to financially support the victim every month till she got a government job, according to sources.

Meanwhile, members of Sindh Dost Committee gathered at the office of PPP-Shaheed Bhutto and reiterated their resolve to stand by the victim.

Hussain Chhalgari and others called upon all social organisations to participate in a protest for the victim scheduled for Monday.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2024