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MULTAN, July 5: The main accused of the Meerwala gang-rape was reportedly arrested from Lasbela on Friday.
Jatoi police SHO Abdul Latif told Dawn that Abdul Khaliq who led the criminal assault on the woman had been arrested. “He is now being escorted to Jatoi,” he said.
Latif said hunt for other rapists — Allah Ditta, Ghulam Farid and Fayyaz — and so-called jurists — Faiz Bakhsh and Muhammad Ramzan — was on. Ghulam Farid was also among the jurists before joining the rapists.
Meanwhile, the Jatoi police have registered a case on the report of 12-year-old Shakoor against Jamil, Pannu and Manzoor for sodomising him. However, none of the three was arrested.
Dera Ghazi Khan range SP crimes Abbas Ahmed has also started investigation into the case. He visited Jatoi on Friday and called on the victim, her brother Shakoor and other family members at the SDPO office to record their statements.
It may be added here that federal minister Dr Attiya Inayatullah had also preferred to stay at Muzaffargarh on Thursday during her visit to console the aggrieved family and instead made the latter to come to the district headquarters after covering a distance of more than 60 kilometres to meet her.
POOR INVESTIGATION: Sources said the police were trying to confine the statement of the victim to the ‘FIR story’ which had many flaws. Multan task force coordinator of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, advocate Rashid Rehman said the FIR story did not fix any responsibility on the Penchayat members rather it would help them escape punishment during trial in the court of law.
He said in the FIR there was no mention of heavily armed people who dragged the victim to the house where she was criminally assaulted. He said in her statement before the Dera SP on Friday she mentioned the presence of some 30 to 40 heavily armed people of Mastoi clan when the Penchayat was in session.
He also pointed out that police had not so far taken into possession any of the articles belonging to the case. He feared that all these loopholes intentionally or unintentionally being created by the investigators would create hurdles in punishing the culprits.
He said according to the FIR statement of the victim she was made to pass by the gathering of hundreds of people in half-naked condition after the rape. But the police did not register the section 354-A for the this act which was inducted in the penal code after the Nawabpur incident in Zia era so that perpetrators of such acts could not go Scot-free.
