KARACHI, Jan 4: A nongovernmental organisation that provides relief to rape victims has urged the authorities to take the Aladdin Park rape case inquiry from the area police and get it reinvestigated by the Crimes Branch.
The NGO, War Against Rape (WAR), said that the area police were not carrying out the inquiry properly and from the very beginning had been using delaying tactics to benefit the accused.
WAR members — Amanullah and Shakira Tariq — who carried out a fact-finding exercise and are dealing with the 17-year-old victim, said that though the rape had been committed on dec 7, the FIR was lodged on Dec 9, and the victim’s medical examination, which was most important and should have been conducted immediately, was carried out the next day — Dec 10.
They said that WAR’s findings had revealed that though the incident occurred more than three weeks back, the accused, despite the fact that he is an official — director — of the park on Rashid Minhas Road in Gulstan-i-Jauher, has not been arrested.
They said that according to their findings the victim, along with a friend, Tauseef, had gone to the park on Dec 7 at around 7.30 pm. While they were sitting in the park, some men posing as watchmen came to them and accused them of indulging in immoral acts. They later took both of them to the administrative office of the accused Zamir Siddiqui.
While the boy was beaten in another room, the girl was raped in the office. At around 12.30 am, the guards snatched Rs400 from the boy, purchased a ready-made suit from the park’s shopping area for the girl and later dropped her at her sister’s house. The official motorcycle (KAP 0110) of Tauseef, who is a PTCL employee, was kept at the park.
The findings revealed that the boy and girl went to the Gulistan-i-Jauher police station the next day (Dec 8) and waiting the whole day for the FIR to be registered, but in vain. They again visited the police station on Dec 9 and after being kept waiting from morning to night, they managed to get the FIR registered late in the night.
The WAR members said that it is very difficult for a girl to get her rape FIR registered with a policemen, while many other policemen in the room listen and watch, It is very embarrassing for her to give sensitive details to a man.
WAR has demanded that the women police station be empowered to deal with all such cases that involve sexual crimes and domestic violence against women, or women cells that have been established in all the districts of the city be given powers to register such cases.