BAHAWALPUR: Dunyapur police in district Lodhran district arrested two suspects, namely the principal of a private college and his accomplice, on the charge of raping a 10th class girl student.

According to the police spokesperson, the arrests were made after victim’s uncle complained to Lodhran DPO Ali Bin Tariq that the suspect was repeatedly raping his niece through blackmail and was demanding money from her against the videos that he had recorded through his accomplice who was his friend.

Dunyapur Saddar police registered a case under sections of the PPC, including rape. In his FIR, the complainant alleged that suspect was running a private college at Chak 281-WB and he raped his niece about a month ago giving her some intoxicant.

Later, he continued raping her with the connivance of his accomplice who shot the videos. The suspects demanded Rs30m from the girl and threatened to upload her videos on social media.

ENCOUNTER: Gailiwal police in Lodhran arrested two robbery suspects in an injured condition after an alleged encounter in the area of Channu Shehbaz near Bahashti Canal.

According to sources, a police team signaled four men riding on two motorcyclists to stop but they opened fire on the law-enforcers. At this, an exchange of fire from both sides started. After the firing stopped, two unidentified suspects were found with injuries.

Police claimed that the suspects were injured by the firing of their two accomplices who fled.

The injured suspects were identified as Muhammad Shehbaz, a resident of Muzaffargarh, and Muhammad Sajjad, a resident of Lodhran. They were allegedly involved in several cases of murder, robbery, illegal arms and attempt to murder.

The injured were admitted to hospital.

IQRA CASE: Iqra Shafiq, a 10th class student, her mother and two aunts, presently on judicial remand in jail, have been accused of an alleged attack on Uch Sharif police on Aug 10.

The accusation was announced at a hurriedly-called press conference by the inquiry officer SSP investigation Syed Jamshed Shah because JI district emir Nasrullah Khan also announced to meet the media in this connection at the Bahawalpur Press Club.

SSP Shah was assigned the inquiry of the case on the demand of Iqra’s father Muhammad Shafiq, who, during open katchery of RPO Rai Babar Saeed last week, had protested against police’s action against his daughter and other women family members to support their rivals, Khawaja Mureed and others, in a land dispute case.

The inquiry officer, instead of focusing on Aug 10 incident, claimed before the media that Shafiq’a family was involved in nine cases since 2009. Some critics say that the inquiry officer should have submitted his report to the RPO, Bahawalpur, who might have released the report to the media.

But, on the contrary the officer addressed the press conference himself before JI leader Nasrullah Khan, who, in his media talk, rejected his inquiry report describing it as partial and one-sided.

The JI leader announced to stage a protest against police to demand an impartial inquiry into the jailed women, including a 10th class minor girl, to unearth the facts.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2025