Accused to marry assault victim

Published June 21, 2005

PESHAWAR, June 20: The alleged rapist of a girl, who was arrested on June 15 soon after the FIR was lodged by the victim’s parents, will marry her in accordance with a compromise reached between the two parties. Waqas, 20, allegedly raped the 14-year-old at gunpoint in her house at the Notia locality.

Mohammad Anwar, father of the accused, said he had asked for the hand of the daughter of Mohammad Ashfaq, the father of the victim, for his son and added that they had accepted the proposal and the matter would be resolved in three days.

The Bhanamari police had registered the FIR under sections 5 and 10 of the Offence of Zina Ordinance 1979 and sections 354-A and 452 of the Pakistan Penal Code against Waqas and his two accomplices.

The victim, who was brought to the forensic laboratory of the Khyber Medical College for medical examination on June 15, told Dawn that she was a student of seventh class. She said she was harassed by the accused almost a week before the incident and added that she did not know him.

Ashfaq had initially refused that Waqas was their relative and said that he would not compromise.

Police said that Waqas, a mechanic who turned out to be a distant relative of the victim, first met the girl at a wedding ceremony in January and also after that.

The girl’s parents told police that the accused had entered their house at 3:30am between June 13 and June 14 when the inmates were sleeping in a room.

“We found two young men pointing the gun at us while the other person, identified as Waqas, dragged the girl to the next room and raped her,” they said.

The victim said the accused had tied her and injured her with blades and assaulted her.

Doctors said the medical report of the girl was positive, adding that marks of assault and cuts on various parts of her body were visible.

Police raided the house of the accused on June 15 and arrested him.

However, Waqas told police that the girl’s parents had trapped him to marry their daughter.