KARACHI, May 31: War Against Rape has urged the authorities, superior judiciary and bar association to ensure that justice be provided to a rape survivor and she and her family not be forced to settle the case out of court.

In a statement here, WAR chief Sarah Zaman said that a 24-year-old girl was abducted, kept hostage and raped allegedly by a member of the legal fraternity and now the victim’s family was being pressured to pardon the accused and give the survivor’s hand in marriage to him.

She said that even the medico-legal report of the survivor, made available to the prosecution on the seventh day of the incident, does not document the marks of violence seen by the WAR staffers on the person of the survivor, who was violated in the DHA area with the case registered by the Darakhshan police.

She said that it was deeply worrying to witness the gross miscarriage of justice being perpetrated by those who are entrusted with upholding the law and protect the rights of citizens. She said that it was no coincidence that a turn of events should happen in Karachi when in Rawalpindi, another case in which the Supreme Court itself had taken notice and where a gang rape case of a 13-year-old was “settled out-of-court” for compensation of Rs 1 million from the accused.

WAR, an NGO that provides assistance to rape victims, has appealed to these institutions to take notice of this case and take appropriate action, lest the survivor and her family also succumb to pressure and break their engagement with the malfunctioning criminal justice system of the country.