NAWABSHAH, Oct 31 A 13-year-old girl from Bhirya Road town who has lodged an FIR, accusing a leader of People's Lawyers Forum (PLF) and his friends of subjecting her to gang-rape, was admitted to the People's Medical College Hospital here on Sunday.

The girl told journalists at the hospital that the accused, who were influential people, were pressurising her poor family to withdraw the case or be ready for 'dire consequences'.

She said she had identified the accused in a court in Naushahro Feroze a few days ago when she was recording her statement and told the judge that former taluka naib nazim of Bhirya Road town, Abdul Karim Lohrani, his brothers Abdul Rahim and Abdul Salam, general secretary of PLF's Naushahro Feroze chapter, and others had criminally assaulted her.

Ms Kulsoom, in-charge of Women Crisis Centre in Naushahro Feroze, told this correspondent that the application she had received from the girl stated that two men, including Hashim, barged into her house a few days ago when she was cooking food, held members of her family at gunpoint, beat them up and then took her away.

She stated that the two handed her over to five people, including Abdul Salam and Abdul Karim, who were waiting outside in a car. They took her to a nearby sugarcane field where they beat and sexually assaulted her, she said.

Naushahro Feroze District Police Officer Rukhsar Ahmed Khuhawar said that the FIR had been registered against Abdul Salam, Abdul Rahim,

Ali Gohar, Shah Nawaz and eight others, six of them unidentified, under sections 364, 452, 337, A-1, F1, 147 and 148 of the PPC on a complaint lodged by the girl's father.

The girl's father did not name Abdul Karim as an accused, he said.An official at the Bhirya police station said that Ali Gohar and Shah Nawaz had been arrested but Abdul Salam, Abdul Rahim and another accused had obtained bail from the district and sessions court, while raids were being carried out to arrest others.

Dr Mohammad Saleem Faiz, associate professor at the PMCH, said the patient was in severe shock and mentally disturbed.

Abdul Salam, one of the accused nominated in the FIR denied his involvement in the gang-rape and said he and his companions were innocent and they would defend themselves in the court.

According to reliable sources, the gang-rape was committed to take revenge on the family for the elopement of a girl of Lohrani community with a man of the girl's community a few months ago. The incident had created enmity between the Lohranis and the girl's community.

Meanwhile, one Shaukat Lohrani of Bachal Lohrani village, has lodged an FIR, accusing the girl's father of kidnapping his sister Zainab, 23, on Oct 23.

Zulfiqar Khaskheli, district coordinator of the Society for Protection of Child Rights, condemned the incident and said that dozens of cases of criminal assault were being reported from different areas but no accused had been punished so far.