Two rapes rock Pak

As news of the Delhi gang rape verdict was coming in, two major incidents of rape sparked horror and indignation in Pakistan.

The Supreme Court took notice of the rape of a five-year-old girl in Lahore on Friday and ordered an immediate investigation by a high-ranking police officer who submitted a preliminary report on Saturday. The girl was found near a hospital in an unconscious condition on Friday morning. News reports say she is recovering at the Services hospital.

The other equally brutal case was the gang rape of a 26-year-old woman belonging to a minority community in Tharparkar district in Sindh. A woman getting gang raped in public has not happened here ever before, said Kashif Bajir head of the Sindh unit of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc).

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has taken a strong view of the gang rape and has appealed for quick action. According to the Commission’s report, the woman was raped by five people in front of her husband and three children. The police have registered a case against the accused who, it is said, enjoy political backing. Sindh Police have arrested eight accused so far. The medico-legal documents, as per the AHRC report, say that “due to no sign of violence and marital status it is [was] not possible to ascertain the gang rape”. The report adds that her clothes have been sent to the chemical laboratory in Karachi for further probe.

The woman was brutally beaten and raped by five people on September 4, 2013. On the day of the incident at around 8 am, the victim, along with her husband, two sons, and a daughter and other relatives was going to work at a brick kiln. On the way, they were stopped by eight persons who were armed with pistols, axes and sticks.

They dragged the woman to a community centre and beat up the whole family. Then they tied them up and forced them to watch while they raped the woman. Police suspect family enmity. Meanwhile the AHRC is writing a separate letter to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women.