Police have gotten the CNIC of the absconding prime suspect of the gang-rape on the Lahore-Sialkot Motorway blocked to keep him from fleeing abroad. As the police get Abid Ali’s CNIC blocked, he will not be able to travel out of the country.
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Meanwhile, sources relayed the police have persuaded the victim woman to visit the jail where the arrested suspect is detained to complete the procedure of identification parade which would be held in presence of the jail authorities and a judicial officer. The police said the identification parade is essential to take the case to its logical conclusion.
On September 9, the woman along with her children was waiting for help on the Lahore-Sialkot motorway after her car ran out of fuel when she was forcefully brought out of the car at gunpoint and gang-raped in the Gujjarpura area on the outskirts of the provincial capital.
An anti-terrorism court earlier on Wednesday sent the co-suspect in the motorway gang-rape case, Shafqat, to judicial lockup for 14 days and directed the jail authorities to hold his identification parade under special arrangements. He was brought to the ATC with a muffled face in an armored personnel vehicle amid tight security.
Read More: How to protect women against violence in Pakistan?
As the police get Abid Ali’s CNIC blocked, it is important to recall that Pakistan ranks 150 out of 153 countries on The Georgetown Institute’s Women, Peace, and Security index ─ among the five worst countries for women in the world. According to 2016 data, 26.8 percent of Pakistani women said they have experienced intimate partner violence.
According to another report of the Aurat Foundation, Pakistan is a country where almost 70% of women are victims of domestic violence, at least once in their lives. This violence is generally committed by their intimate partners – husbands. These figures, however, do not include psychological violence, which is even more common in urban communities.
One in every three women in Punjab aged between 15 and 64 years has suffered violence, according to a survey conducted by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The survey funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) was the first of its kind in Pakistan in collaboration with the Bureau of Statistics and Punjab Commission on the Status of Women.
Read More: Rise of trafficking and domestic violence against women: How to stop it?