HYDERABAD: Two suspects, booked and arrested on Friday for allegedly subjecting a teenage girl to gang-rape, were remanded in police custody for four days by a first-class magistrate in Tando Mohammad Khan on Saturday.

The girl’s father had lodged a complaint against unknown suspects at the Tando Mohammad Khan police station stating that she had left the nomad family’s hut to get some commodities at around noon but did not return in the next few hours. He said he and his son mounted a search for her and found her lying in the ground of the town’s sugar mills at around 4.30pm in a semiconscious condition. The father stated that it transpired that she was intoxicated and subjected to rape.

Soon after her recovery, the police shifted the girl to the Tando Mohammad Khan hospital for a medico-legal examination. She was then transported to the Liaquat University Hospital (LUH) in Hyderabad for an exp­ert opinion and further medical examination by some gynaecologists at the Liaquat Univer­sity of Medical and Health Scien­ces (LUMHS), Jamshoro.

According to LUMHS Vice Chan­cellor Prof Dr Bikha Ram, the victim was not willing to have her medical examination be conducted. He poin­t­ed out that such an examination could not be done without the consent of the victim. However, the examination was said to have been carried out. She was then taken to Tando Moham­mad Khan but brought back to the LUH when Qaumi Awami Tehreek (QAT) leader Ayaz Latif Palijo, who took personal interest in the case, spoke to Tando Mohammad Khan SSP Zulfiqar Talpur. He also visited the LUH on Friday evening.

According to the FIR, the victim told her father that two persons intercepted and took her into the bushes, forced her to drink alcohol and then subjected her to gang-rape.

SSP Talpur told Dawn that the nomad family was currently residing in Jati town of Sujawal district but returned to Tando Mohammad Khan, where they previously lived, only a few days back.

He said that the DNA samples of the victim and suspects had been taken to help investigators reach a conclusion. He said the suspects admitted that she had drunk alcohol with them but denied having subjected her to criminal assault.

The police later in the day picked up one suspect from within the town and the other from Badin. After interrogating them, they booked them on gang-rape charges and produced before the magistrate, who rem­an­ded them in police custody for four days.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2019