GUJRAT: A school watchman accused of raping a minor girl student was allegedly killed in the firing by his own accomplices, who attacked a police team to free the suspect in Gujranwala city on Thursday.

According to a spokesman for Gujranwala police, a watchman, Ashfaq, had been arrested for allegedly raping a seven-year-old girl studying in the school where he was employed.

A court had granted the suspect’s physical remand to the Cantonment police.

The spokesman claimed that on Thursday a police team was taking the suspect somewhere for identification, when two men allegedly opened fire on the policemen to free Ashfaq.

He said that in the attackers’ firing, the suspect suffered critical bullet injuries and died on the spot. The attackers fled the scene, he added. The spokesman said police teams are looking for the fleeing attackers.

FIA CRACKDOWN: The FIA claims to have arrested 16 alleged human traffickers, including three women, during a crackdown in the region.

A senior FIA official said that the suspects were allegedly involved in extorting Rs31.9 million from their clients on the pretext of sending them to Europe and the Middle East. He said the FIA arrested eight suspects in Gujranwala, five in Gujrat and three in Sialkot.

He said the two female suspects arrested by Gujranwala FIA circle – Aqsa Wazir and Sumaira Bibi – had allegedly received a sum of Rs6.5m from two brothers on the pretext of sending them to Italy. The complainant alleged that they neither fulfilled their commitment, nor returned the amount.

Similarly, he said, another suspect, Parveen Bibi, along with her husband, Ibtsham Ansaar, allegedly received Rs2.9m from a man to “send him to Luxembourg” but did not fulfill the commitment.

The FIA’s Sialkot circle also arrested a suspect for receiving Rs6.6m to send a youth to Canada on study visa.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2026