Lahore police granted 3-day physical remand of woman in connection with Azeri national's rape case

LAHORE: A judicial magistrate on Wednesday granted police a three-day physical remand of a woman in connection with a case of an Azeri woman’s rape.

The 20-year-old Azerbaijan 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 located near Raiwind on the night between Sept 25 and Sept 26.

In her statement, 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.

A 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.

He argued that physical remand of a woman could not be sought except in offences of murder or robbery.

The counsel further submitted that nothing was required to be recovered from the suspect.

The magistrate asked the suspect whether she wanted to undergo a medical examination.

“No, I do not want to undergo a medical examination,” she replied.

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 rest, would remain in jail in judicial custody.

On Tuesday, a session’s court granted interim pre-arrest bail to the second female suspect in the case, restraining police from arresting her till Oct 5.

The woman’s lawyer said her client wanted to join the police investigation to prove her innocence.

Survivor’s statement

The Defence C police had registered a case against three unidentified suspects on September 26 on the survivor’s complaint.

In her statement under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the Azeri woman said she had arrived in Islamabad from Istanbul on Sept 13 and stayed in Faisalabad for five days before travelling to Lahore.

“I had a plan to visit Skardu, but I could not go there because I was alone,” she said.

According to her, on the day of the alleged incident, she messaged two women, asking them to meet her in Lahore.

At around 11pm, she went to a cafe where she met one of them — the woman sent on remand today — and later accompanied her to a house in Bahria Town to meet the other, who has secured pre-arrest bail.

The complainant told the magistrate that at around 2am, a white car arrived carrying two men, one of whom was sent on remand on Tuesday (first suspect).

Later, they moved to an apartment where two more men arrived, one of whom was the second person sent on remand (second suspect), while she did not know the name of the other man.

According to the complainant, in a separate room, the woman on bail took between Rs20,000 and Rs30,000 from the first suspect, saying the money was for a party, while the woman now on remand also joined them.

The Azeri woman said she made it clear that she “did not need money or alcohol”. She alleged that the first suspect tried to touch her and locked her in a separate room.

When she asked about her friends, she was told that they had left. When she tried to leave, the complainant said she was told that she could not go because her friends had taken money.

The victim said she offered to pay the men, but they told her that she would have to drink alcohol with them before they would let her go.

She alleged that the three men raped her.

She further stated that the suspects then put her in a car and threw her out at an unknown location, while threatening her with dire consequences if she approached the police.

According to her statement, the suspects also took her handbag containing Rs200,000, an iPhone 13 Pro Max and another mobile phone.

She then requested some people present there to help her call the police emergency number 15, following which the police arrived.

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.