NAROWAL, Sept 25: The family of a girl, who was abducted and disgraced by three youngsters belonging to influential families of Takia plot village in Saddar police station precinct , has protested against the police for allegedly declaring the three suspects innocent.

According to reports, Shoaib, Usman and Basharat had abducted on June 26 last a 16-year-old girl from the village street when she was going to threw garbage.

They took her to an outhouse and allegedly tried to gang-rape her, but the girl resisted and raised hue and cry. After some time, her brother Javed and cousin Irfan reached there and rescued her from the offenders. However, she suffered six injuries on her body in the incident and remained under treatment at the District Headquarters Hospital for more than a week. The three youngsters are the sons of landlords.

Barber by profession, girl's father Abdur Rasheed approached the Saddar police station to lodge a complaint against the offenders but the police did not listen to him. But on his insistence for registration of a criminal case against the offenders, moharrar Basharat asked him to pay Rs5,000 as his fee. However, the poor family could not pay illegal gratification for its genuine case.

Subsequently, the victim's father approached local association of human rights president Khalid Mahmood Baig advocate, who filed a petition for registration of a criminal case against the three suspects before the district and sessions judge.

On the orders of the judge, a case wad instituted against the alleged culprits on July 1 with the Saddar police station.

Rasheed told this correspondent that the police, however, kept favouring the suspects even after registration of a case and did not arrest any of the nominated men. He said he and other members of his family had visited the police station time and again and asked the investigation officer, sub-inspector Khadim Husain, and the SHO to arrest the suspects but to no avail.

He also said the suspects were threatening them with dire consequences and forcing them not to pursue the case if they wanted to stay in the village.

Now the SHO and the investigation officer are learnt to have declared the case as a fabricated one and recommended cancellation of the FIR, though they have not even once visited the place of incident nor have they met the victim and the eye-witnesses.The poor father said he complained about the matter to the district police officer, who appointed DSP (Headquarters) Chaudhry Mukhtar to inquire into the matter and ensure dispensation of justice. But the suspects managed to got the support of the DSP as well, he alleged.

Muhammad Ramzan, an uncle of the victim, said when they appeared before the DSP for inquiry he refused to listen to them. He said they produced the victim, eye-witnesses and other villagers before the DSP and also submitted their statements duly attested on oath in support of the case but he bluntly refused to accept the whole evidence.

Ramzan quoted the DSP as saying: "There is no justice in Pakistan. You should also do not expect any justice from me in this case. Go away your case has been cancelled."

When contacted, the DSP said complainant Abdur Rasheed had reached a compromise with the suspects after receiving a compensation of Rs15,000. Now, he said, Rasheed had no right to pursue this case.

Pledging to fight for justice, the victim's father has appealed to the president and prime minister, besides higher-ups of the police department, to take stock of the situation and dispense justice to them.

He announced that he would stage a sit-in outside parliament if justice was not meted out to him in a week.