Woman gang-raped in front of family while police argued over jurisdiction

A woman was allegedly gang-raped in front of her husband and three-year-old daughter in district Hafizabad of Punjab while police argued over jurisdiction.

Dawn reports that robbers took the woman on gunpoint to nearby fields and sexually assaulted her in front of her husband and daughter.

Originally a resident of Chiniot, the family was reportedly going back to the city via motorcycle after meeting a relative when it was stopped by three robbers near Sukheke around 11:30 pm, Dawn has reported.

Arguing over jurisdiction

Reports say that instead of helping the victim family, police officials of the Hafizabad and Nankana Sahib clashed over jurisdiction, a violation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) issued in the wake of the Lahore-Sialkot motorway gang-rape incident [2020] to respond to sexual assaults on women.

For an hour or so, the victim and her family remained unattended while the gangsters fled the spot.

The incident was reported to 15 Nankana police, who then diverted the call to the Hafizabad police, claiming that it was not their jurisdiction.

The Hafizabad police sent a team to the crime scene and, after a brief investigation, announced that the crime spot is in the jurisdiction of Nankana police.

An official told Dawn that DPO Hafizabad directed the police to reach the spot and lodge a case.

Sukheke police registered a rape case against the unknown suspects and took into custody a suspected robber, recovering from his custody two pistols.
Later, the police of both districts again entered into yet another dispute over jurisdiction.

Nankana police again rejected the claim that the incident took place in their area. The matter remained under discussion all day on Thursday, bringing the investigation to a halt. To establish jurisdiction rights, Hafizabad police took a tehsildar and staff from the Board of Revenue to the crime scene.

Hafizabad DPO Faisal Gulzar asserted that even though the incident took place in Nankana Sahib, he ordered an FIR be registered in his district’s police station.

“We arrested one of the three criminals who looted the family and raped the woman”, he told Dawn, adding that during the investigation, the arrested suspect told the police that his accomplices fled towards Rawalpindi.

A team has been sent to trace the other men and investigate the incident.

The DPO also claimed that the woman was raped by one criminal.