Lahore court grants three-day physical remand to woman in Azeri rape case

Key Takeaways

A judicial magistrate granted a three-day physical remand to a woman in connection with an Azeri woman’s rape case.
The 20-year-old Azeri woman was allegedly gang-raped by three men in a private housing society near Raiwind.
The case is the second such incident in the Defence C police station area in the last four months.

A Lahore judicial magistrate on Wednesday granted a three-day physical remand to a woman in connection with a case of an Azeri woman’s rape. The 20-year-old Azeri national had travelled to Pakistan for business purposes and was allegedly gang-raped by three men in a rented flat of a private housing society near Raiwind on the night between September 25 and 26.

The complainant had named two women with whom she had met before the men accused of raping her joined them. Two of those men had been arrested and were sent on a six-day physical remand on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the woman suspect was produced before Judicial Magistrate Azhar Mahmood at the Cantonment Courts under strict security.

The prosecutor informed the court that it would be her first physical remand and argued that being a woman, she could be kept in jail during her physical remand. A counsel for the suspect, however, contended that her relationship with the complainant was limited to friendship and that physical remand of a woman could not be sought except in offences of murder or robbery.

The magistrate asked the suspect whether she wanted to undergo a medical examination. She replied, 'No, I do not want to undergo a medical examination.' The magistrate then allowed a three-day physical remand of the suspect to the police. The magistrate directed that the woman suspect would remain in police custody from sunrise to sunset and, for the rest of the time, would remain in jail in judicial custody.

According to Lahore Deputy Inspector General (Investigation) Zeeshan Raza, police had registered a case against three unidentified suspects on September 26 on the survivor’s complaint. One of the prime suspects had been arrested on Monday, while another’s arrest surfaced on Tuesday. The third suspect is still being traced.

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.

The complainant in the current case had stated that she was lured, intoxicated, and raped by three unidentified men in a private housing society near Raiwind during the night between September 25 and 26. The case is currently under investigation.