KARACHI, April 4: Speakers at a demonstration on Thursday demanded protection against “rapists in uniforms”, and arrest of and punishment to all those involved in the Ramaswami gang-rape case.

The demonstration was organized by the Pakistan Awami Tehreek at Press Club to protest against the casual handling of the gang-rape incident. The participants demanded immediate and stern action against the culprits who belong to the police.

They said that on one hand the government claimed to give rights to women, and on the other its police officials were invading houses and gang-raping girls in the presence of their families.

They demanded that exemplary punishment be given to the SHO who had refused the registration of FIR against the rapists as his son was one of them. The demonstrators also raised slogans for the early arrest of all the accused and demanded protection against the criminals wearing uniforms.

Imtiaz Javed, Lubna Mohajir, Rehana Kauser, Shazia Bokhari, Nasrin akhtar and others spoke on the occasion.

Meanwhile, the Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA), condemning the gang-rape of two sisters by serving policemen in a densely populated locality, said that the gory crime became more heinous as it had been committed by law enforcers themselves.

Chief of LHRA, Zia Awan, said that a fact-finding team of t he organization had visited the victims’ residence and offered free legal aid to them. He said that at least one of the accused had also been involved in robbery and other heinous crimes and many cases were pending against him in the courts.

He pointed out that at least five girls had been raped in the country by policemen during the year 2001, but these were incidents that got reported in the press and were in fact the tip of an iceberg as a vast majority of such incidents never got reported, particularly when the perpetrators were law enforcers themselves.

He maintained that as a matter of principle all the police officials against whom criminal cases were pending in the courts must be taken off the duty.

He demanded that stern action be taken against the SHO who had refused to register the FIR of the incident, and that all the culprits, some of them still at large, be arrested immediately and brought to book.