The police on Thursday released an accused in the motorway gang rape case, Waqarul Hasan Shah, after declaring him as not guilty.
According to the police, the suspect was in the custody for the past 17 days after he surrendered to the police, claiming to be innocent.
The police on the indication of Waqarul Hasan arrested the accused Shafqat Ali for his alleged involvement in the gang-rape case. “We have released Waqar ul Hasan after proved that he has no role in the motorway case,” the police officer said.
The prime suspect in Lahore Motorway gang-rape case on September 13 surrendered himself to the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) Police Station in Model Town.
In his initial statement, the accused refused his involvement in the gang-rape incident and added that he had nothing to do with the incident. The Punjab police, via a tweet, announced prize money of Rs2.5 million for credible information to spot the suspects in the Lahore Motorway link-road incident.
On the indication of Waqarul Hasan during the probe, the police were able to arrest the main accused Shafqat Ali.
Announcing the arrests on September 14, Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar confirmed that police have arrested a suspect named Shafqat in the Lahore motorway gang-rape case, who has also under interrogation confessed to have committed the crime.
Taking to Twitter, the chief minister said that the DNA of suspect Shafqat had matched with the samples collected from the crime scene.
”Shafqat has confessed his involvement in the motorway gang-rape case,” said Buzdar and added that efforts were being made to arrest another prime suspect Abid Ali.
However, since then the prime suspect Abid Malhi is yet to be arrested after police at least failed three times in its bid to arrest him from various locations across the province.
