MULTAN, July 15: Muzaffargarh police on Monday arrested last of the absconding accused in the Shakoor sodomy case related to the Meerwala gang-rape.
Working on a tip-off, police raided a hide-out in Rahim Yar Khan district and nabbed Manzoor Husain. He, along with Jamil and Punnu, was accused of assaulting 12-year-old Shakoor Tattla, who was later blamed by the Mastois for having ‘illicit’ relations with one of their girls. Mastois convened a Panchayat of their clan and ordered gang-rape of Shakoor’s sister to avenge the ‘insult’.
The Tattla family said the Mastois had staged the drama of holding the Panchayat to cover up sodomy. Their assertion was later also confirmed by the governor’s inspection team in its findings.
It may be added here that the police have so far arrested 18 people, including an ASI, in the gang-rape episode. Among them are Faiz Bakhsh Mastoi, the chief juror, Ramzan Pachaar, the arbitrator, Ghulam Farid, juror-cum-rapist, Abdul Khaliq, Allah Ditta and Fayyaz Husain, the rapists.
Besides the three accused in the sodomy case, eight others — Aslam, Rasool Bakhsh, Allah Ditta, Khalil, Qasim, Ghulam Husain, Hazoor Bakhsh, and Alla Diwaya — were arrested for being part of the Mastois gathering to enforce the Panchayat verdict.
The victim family had reportedly said the Jatoi police had arrested a wrong person in place of actual perpetrator Fayyaz Husain for having the same name and father’s name as well.
When contacted, Dera Ghazi Khan range police DIG Asif Nawaz expressed surprise and said the victim and other witnesses had identified all the four arrested accused before the judicial magistrate at the time of recording statements under section 164. “No one objected on that day,” he added, saying “arrested Fayyaz has confessed to committing the crime. Other rapists have also identified him as their accomplice.”
Jatoi police have meanwhile completed the draft of the challan which will be forwarded to the chief prosecutor of anti-terrorism courts in the Punjab on Tuesday for his opinion. A police source said the challan would be submitted to the ATA-97 court in Dera on June 17, a day before the hearing of the suo moto notice taken by the apex court in the Meerwala case.
It is learnt that challan will be submitted under section 6 of ATA-97 that charged the accused with commotion and harassment to a segment of society.
SUSPENDED: The Dera range DIG has suspended three sub-inspectors and two ASIs of Jatoi police station on Monday for showing negligence in the execution of duty. They are penalised for detaining people without formally recording their arrest at the time when Punjab Law Minister Rana Ijaz visited the police station and recovered ‘illegally’ confined people from the residential quarters of the police station. Some of them were nominated accused in a number of cases, including murder.
Meanwhile, working women’s organisation trust, an organisation backed by Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan, took out a protest procession against the Meerwala gang-rape here on Monday.
Several dozen women participated in the procession that started its march from Kalma Chowk to the Multan Press Club. Addressing the gathering at the termination point, trust’s provincial organiser Shahida Perveen termed the Meerwala incident a blot on the social and moral history of the country.
She urged the apex court to scrutinize all the aspects of the gruesome incident.