RAWALPINDI: A 24-year-old girl was found dead on Saturday after falling from the third storey of a building in Rawat police precincts. The woman’s family claim that she was raped before being thrown from the building, located in Bahria Town Phase 8.

According to Rawat police, the girl was a Chakwal native and enrolled at Quaid-i-Azam University’s Department of Defence and Strategic Studies. She was said to be preparing to appear in the upcoming Central Superior Services (CSS) examination.

“She arrived in Islamabad with her grandfather on Nov 18 to recover her university dues. They also visited a local hospital, where her grandfather underwent a medical check-up. After the hospital visit, her grandfather returned to Chakwal, while she stayed on in the garrison city,” Sub-Inspector (SI) Zaheeruddin Babar, the investigation officer told Dawn.

SI Babar said that after her grandfather left, she went to stay with Vehari resident Umair Makki. He claimed the two had befriended each other over the social networking website Facebook, and that he was helping her prepare for the CSS exams.

Prime suspect in custody, police searching for accomplices

But on Friday, Nov 20, the woman phoned her mother and said that Umair Makki was trying to force her to marry him. She also told her mother that she was being held against her will in a flat and there were two other men who were keeping watch over her. Upon learning this, SI Babar said the mother sent her son Adnan and two other people to bring her home.

“When the victim’s brother and his companions reached Plaza No. 58, near the Bahria Town Maintenance Centre in Phase 8, they heard the victim screaming. Shortly afterwards, she was allegedly thrown from the third floor,” he said.

The victim was taken to District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital, where the doctors pronounced her dead and conducted an autopsy. The body was then handed over to the family.

“Umair Makki was apprehended after he injured himself trying to escape the building by climbing down a drain pipe, but his two accomplices managed to escape,” Mr Babar said. The suspect is recovering in the DHQ Hospital.

According to SI Babar, Umair had claimed in his statement that the victim was his wife. He said that the police registered an FIR and had conducted search operations to arrest the other culprits.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Sajid Gondal told Dawn that the accused had claimed that the victim was his wife, but failed to produce a marriage certificate.

Adnan, the victim’s brother, told Dawn his sister was unmarried and that she had come to Islamabad for her grandfather’s medical check-up.

When contacted, DHQ Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Khalid Randhawa said that the post-mortem was carried out within an hour. He said that samples from the body had been sent to Lahore for chemical analysis, but the final report will be submitted after the chemical examiner’s report was received from Lahore.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2015