LAYYAH, May 6: A 19-year-old girl who was kidnapped on Friday and allegedly sold to a deaf-mute double her age for Rs40,000 is now in Kot Sultan police custody which wants to have her DNA tests conducted.

Though the girl was recovered on Saturday within 24 hours after her abduction from Bait Wasawa Shumali village, she has not been able to see the dawn of liberty and trauma of being kept in police custody is adding to her abduction and rape sufferings she underwent on Friday and Saturday.

On intervention of local human rights activists and journalists, the station house officer (SHO) on Tuesday vowed to take her to Lahore for a DNA test any time by Wednesday (today) while her relatives have alleged that the police, in connivance with some influential, who had indeed got the girl abducted, were delaying her tests only to exterminate rape evidence.

Though her neighbour Abdur Rauf and his wife, who allegedly fabricated the master plan of her abduction, are still at large, two of the abductors and the man to whom she was subsequently sold have been arrested. This was Rauf’s second attempt to get the 19-year-old abducted..

Haqnawaz, Qadir Bukhsh and Manzur Hussain kidnapped (S) from her village on May 2. Her father Khuda Bukhsh was among the eyewitnesses who also chased the abductors, but to no avail. The kidnappers took her to Layyah’s Beelay Wala locality where they sold her to a deaf-mute Allah Bux, who runs a hotel, against Rs40,000.

The Kot Sultan police registered an abduction case against the three men on the complaint of her father.

On a tip-off, a police team, consisting of Elite Force commandoes and policewomen, raided the ‘den’ of Allah Bukhsh and recovered the captive girl on Saturday. The police also arrested Haq Nawaz and Qadir Bukhsh while Manzur Hussain absconded.

The victim later reported to the police that she was sold to Allah Bux who raped her several times during abduction.

She accused her neighbour Abdur Rauf and his wife of masterminding her abduction. She alleged that the couple had hatched a similar conspiracy a few months ago but that effort did not succeed.

The duty officer at Kot Sultan police station failed to justify the recovered girl’s presence at the police station even 72 hours after her recovery.

SHO Bilal Haider maintained that she was kept at the police station just to get her DNA test conducted and the police would take her to Lahore any time by Wednesday (today).

The victim’s maternal aunt, Hasina Bibi, told Dawn that the police was acting in collusion with the influential people of the area who were indeed backing the kidnappers. She alleged that the police was deliberately trying to destroy rape evidence by keeping the girl in custody and delaying her examination.

Human rights activist and a local lawyer, Hina Naz, said the police could not keep any woman in its custody for the purpose of getting her tests conducted. She also maintained that delaying the DNA test could be an effort to facilitate culprits by the police so that rape evidence might spoil with the efflux of time.