A Pakistani sessions court has sentenced three men to life for raping a teenage Christian girl in Sialkot in Punjab province last year. The court also imposed heavy fines on the convicts, who were identified as Latif, Hamid and Mohsin, all residents of the suburbs in Sialkot.
The Additonal District and Sessions Judge Samia imposed a fine of PKR 4,00,00 on Latif and PKR 2,00,000 each on Hamid and Mohsin.
According to the police, the victim was a resident of Lal Kurti Bazar of Cantt in Sialkot. The 19-year-old Christian girl was abducted by the three men while she was going to the market. Latif, Hamid and Mohsin gang-raped the girl for three consecutive days and then left her in a deserted place in a critical condition.
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The incident came to light on March 30, 2021, when the victim’s father complained to the police that his daughter went to the market but did not return home. Three days after the girl was kidnapped, the police found her in an unconscious state by the roadside.
The victim was then shifted to a hospital in Sialkot, where she was under treatment for a few weeks.
Khuram Shahzad, the spokesperson for Sialkot police, said the survivor told cops that three unidentified armed men had kidnapped her and forcibly took her to an unknown place, reported Dawn.
Initially, the police registered an FIR against unidentified suspects before arresting the three men a month after the incident. They reportedly had confessed to the crime.
In a similar incident in October this year, a Hindu woman was tortured and gang-raped by her landlord and some other men in Bhawalpur area of Pakistan’s Punjab province. The woman, in a viral video, had alleged that she was abducted and taken to a deserted place because she asked for her wages from the landlord. The woman was reportedly beaten and gang-raped by some men. A complaint was later filed, and three persons were detained for the crime.
(With inputs from PTI)