A woman and a 13-year-old girl were kidnapped, stripped naked and gang-raped in a village near Naukot town of Mirpur Khas district, Sindh, police reported on Tuesday.
A mob of over 20 men kidnapped the pair from a house near 16-Mile at Nafees Nagar on Saturday night. They were rescued from that location by police, after the incident came to the attention of Pakistan People’s Party MPA Mir Tariq Talpur. The woman and girl were taken to the rural health centre in Naukot for a medical check-up, where the doctor on-call Dr Zebnissa confirmed the brutal criminal assault on both victims.
The victims told the press that they were taken by the Tangaris and subjected to gang-rape for several hours.
‘We both were stripped naked, forced to parade naked, and then were raped by many tormenters for many hours at an undisclosed location,’ one of the victims said.
The relatives of the victims staged demonstrations in Naukot, alleging that the woman and girl had been abducted from the home of Mohammad Hanif Rajput at gunpoint, after a gang of outlaws ransacked and robbed the house. They claimed that Naukot police were reluctant to chase and arrest the armed men, as they are known criminals in the area. The relatives said that the First Information Request (FIR) against the accused was only registered after the PPP MPA reached the town and sought information of the gruesome incident,
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Mirpur Khas Captain (Retired) Asad Ali Chudhary sought information from villagers and the victims on Tuesday in cooperation with the governmetn administration in Naukot. The SSP said that police had arrested 12 suspects named in the FIR, and were conducting raids to arrest the remaining suspects.
MPA Mir Tariq Talpur said while visiting the village that he was meeting the victims on the direction of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who he said had taken serious note of the incident.
Mr Talpur said that the initial medical-report clearly showed that the woman and girl were both brutally subjected to gang-rape for several hours during their detention.
“This is one of the worst incidents in the district where women were subjected to the worst treatment,” he said, adding that PPP would fully support the victims in their pursuit of justice.
The incident has created uproar in the area, with many rights activists demanding a thorough investigation of the ‘savage’ incident.
