MUZAFFARGARH: The Muzaffargarh City police is again in spotlight for the same reasons it had been in October last: police inaction on the complaint of a woman regarding gang rape.

A woman, of Muzaffargarh, has moved the Supreme Court seeking action against the police and other accused in her gang-rape case.

District Police Officer (DPO) Malik Awais defended police on Saturday saying that two nominated accused in the recent case, including a police official, had already been arrested while one man, mentioned as the main accused, who works for a news channel, was on pre-arrest bail.

The question, however, is that the complainant moved the application on March 26 seeking the arrest of her boss, a security agency owner, and his accomplices who had been raping her for months. Her application did not move the police officials. Later, she approached the DPO on March 31, seeking justice. The accused, however, were arrested on April 8, when the complainant moved the Supreme Court.

On Friday, police arrested two accused, including one assistant sub-inspector of the patrolling police, while the main accused secured pre-arrest bail till April 11.

The complainant says she had applied for a job in a security company at Faisal Stadium in July 2015. Since then, she had been raped by her boss and her police official friend.

According to the FIR, she was subjected to rape for eight months during which she and her family were threatened by the local police that they would be implicated in fake and forged cases. They even threatened to kill her on March 26 and got her signatures on a blank nikah form so that she could be exploited in future also.

Dawn visited the security agency office which was locked.

A police official said the security agency was fake. Lawyer Sikandar Shah said the agency should have been detected and closed under several operations taken in the name of the National Action Plan.

Earlier, the city police station had hit headlines on Oct 13, 2015, when a woman had committed suicide in front of the police station, alleging that two police officials had gang raped her. Later on, the chief minister visited her village and ordered the arrest of police officials for not addressing the complaint on time.

Then station house officer Munir Chandia was dismissed from service and arrested. After two months, he was back to duty.

Also Read: Rape, mutilation: Pakistan's tribal justice for women

In May 2014, a first-year female student had died of self immolation in front of Mer Hazar police station while protesting the failure of the police to provide her justice. Then, besides the chief minister, the inspector general of police had also visited the area. All those police officials arrested under terror laws, were later acquitted of charges and now they are serving in police stations.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2016