Lahore police arrest key suspect in Azeri woman gang-rape case

AI Summary

Police in Lahore arrested one of three suspects in the alleged gang rape of a 20-year-old Azerbaijani woman who had travelled to Pakistan for business. The victim recorded a statement before a magistrate, and authorities are searching for the other suspects, who police say may have left Lahore.

LAHORE: Police on Monday arrested one of the three suspects who allegedly gang-raped a foreign woman in Lahore. The 20-year-old Azeri woman had travelled to Pakistan for business purposes and was allegedly gang-raped by three men in a rented flat of a private housing society located near Raiwind on the night between Friday and Saturday. Lahore Deputy Inspector General (Investigation) Zeeshan Raza confirmed the arrest of the key suspect to Dawn, adding that two other suspects had also been identified and police teams were conducting raids to arrest them. “We are investigating the case in the light of the victim woman’s statement to the police.” The official said that the woman’s medical reported confirmed she was subjected to the sexual assault. On Sunday, Lahore police requested federal authorities to place the names of the three prime suspects in the case on the Provisional National Identification List (PNIL), saying they had fled Lahore shortly after the alleged assault. Police had also taken two close relatives and a domestic servant of one of the suspects into custody. The vehicle allegedly used in the incident had also been taken into custody, he added. Woman records statement Earlier in the day, the Azeri woman recorded her statement under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure before a judicial magistrate at the Cantonment Courts on Monday. The woman was brought to the court under tight security to record her statement before Judicial Magistrate Muhammad Sagheer. Before the proceedings began, the magistrate ordered all unrelated persons to leave the courtroom. The statement continued for more than an hour. The Defence C police had registered a case against three unidentified suspects on the woman’s complaint. It is the second such case in which a foreign woman was reportedly gang-raped in the Defence C police station area during the last four months. In June, two foreign women, nationals of the Netherlands and Venezuela, were allegedly abducted and sexually assaulted in the Defence C police station area. According to the FIR, the women were abducted by five suspects, including a close relative of a senior political personality, who demanded ransom and subjected them to sexual assault during their captivity.