On Monday, Chung Police filed a first information report (FIR) against a rickshaw driver and another man for gang-rapping a woman and her adolescent daughter the day before on Lahore Development Authority (LDA) Avenue in Lahore.
The FIR was filed in response to the woman’s allegation under section 376 of the Pakistan Penal Code (punishment for rape).
According to the FIR, the 35-year-old woman informed police that she and her 15-year-old daughter took a bus from Vehari to Lahore on Sunday at 10 p.m. They took a green-colored rickshaw from the Thokar bus station to go to her sister’s home in Officers Colony, Saddar Cantonment Board, she claimed.
According to the FIR, the rickshaw driver and another guy in the vehicle instead drove her and her daughter to a secluded location on LDA Avenue, where they were raped.
The woman said that she and her daughter began screaming after seeing the lights of a car approaching the scene, at which point the rickshaw driver and the second suspect abandoned their vehicle and fled. She said the suspects stole her phone as well as Rs5,000 in cash.
Meanwhile, the woman said that someone called the police after hearing her screams and that officers arrived on the scene shortly after.
According to the FIR, she said that if the culprits were brought before her, she would be able to identify them.
Ghulam Mahmood Dogar, the Lahore Capital City Police Officer (CCPO), later released a statement stating that an inquiry had been started and that the suspects’ rickshaw had been seized.
He added that teams had been established to apprehend the suspects, and that evidence had been gathered from the murder site.
The victims will be transported to a hospital for medical evaluation, according to the CCPO.
The issue was also brought to the attention of Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, who requested a report from the CCPO.
He told him to arrest the culprits within 48 hours and to do all he could to bring justice to the victims.
According to individuals familiar with the situation, police arrested one of the suspects on Monday, whom they identified as rickshaw driver Umar Farooq. According to the authorities, the suspect’s criminal record revealed that he was arrested in two rape cases in Lahore and Okara last year and in 2018.
Following the killings of Noor Mukadam and Quratul Ain in July and the attack on a TikToker on Independence Day this month, there has been a renewed emphasis on violence against women in Pakistan.
