Kidnap, sexual assault: Girl to continue testimony against suspects on Monday
By: Kashif Zafar
BAHAWALPUR: A special judicial magistrate on Saturday started recording the statement of a girl, who says she was detained by a man who raped her for over a year. She will re-appear on Monday to finish her testimony against the man and a couple who kidnapped her from Karachi and sold her in Jatoi.
Mukhtar Mai, who accompanied the girl to the court, told the media that she had also submitted an application to the office of the district police officer seeking action against the suspects, identified as Jano Mai and her husband Habib Ahmed.
Mai said she had received the girl at her shelter home on September 2, a week after the registration of a kidnapping FIR with Noshehra Jadeed police by Ahmed who has claimed the girl is his wife.
The girl denies that she was ever married to Ahmed. Talking to the media, the girl said she had been detained at Ahmed and Jano Mai’s house for eight months. She said Jano Mai had later sold her to the man in Jatoi who detained and sexually assaulted her for over a year. She said she finally got a chance to escape from the house when the man was away.
She said she was referred to Mai’s shelter home by some women on the way. The girl said she had been drugged and kidnapped from Karachi two years ago by Jano Mai. She said on regaining consciousness she had been told that she was in Jalalpur Pirwala. “Jano Mai introduced Habib Ahmed and said that he was my husband,” she said.
Investigation Officer Liaqat Ali of Noshehra Jadeed police told The Express Tribune that he had arrested one of the four men identified in the kidnapping case. He identified him as Raju, who he said had now been sent to the jail, and said that he had denied the kidnapping allegation.
He said he would question Habib Ahmed about the allegations the girl had made against him only if he received a formal complaint or court directions. DPO Sohail Habib Tajik denied that Mai had submitted an application to him during her visit to his office. He said he would wait for the court’s orders.
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