PESHAWAR: The police have initiated the process to attach the immovable property of the absconding prime accused in the recent DI Khan girl stripping case, the Peshawar High Court was told.

A teenage girl was paraded naked in her Dera Ismail Khan village last Oct.

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In the case progress report submitted to the high court, the provincial inspector general of police’s office said eight of the nine accused had been arrested, while one accused, Sajawal, was at large for whose arrest hectic efforts were underway.

“Incessant raids are being conducted on the suspected abodes of absconding accused. Two cases vide FIR No 212 and 213 dated 03.11.2017 under section 212 PPC have been registered against facilitators of the absconding accused. Proceedings under Section 88 of the CrPC for attachment of the immovable property measuring 138 kanals has been initiated and submitted before the court of judicial magistrate,” it said.

The report said the case had been submitted to the trial court for prosecution of the arrested accused, while the police were in contact with the complainant for resolution of their grievances.

Police chief says security provided to DI Khan girl, family

A Peshawar High Court bench comprising Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Syed Afsar Shah had on Nov 22 disposed of a petition filed by the alleged victim asking the IGP to submit progress report of the investigation to the director of the court’s human rights cell for the chief justice’s examination.

The petitioner had requested the court to direct the provincial government and IGP to ensure protection and security of petitioner and her family; to submit weekly progress report of investigation to the court; to include a person named Rehmatullah in the case as accused person as he had made video of the said occurrence and to recover the said video so that it should not be misused.

In the report, the IGP office said the police had taken seven mobile phones of suspect Rehmatullah and sent them to the Forensic Science Laboratory Peshawar for tracing the video of the incident but the result turned out to be negative.

“Three other mobile phones were recovered from Rehmatullah and the same have been sent to FSL for tracing the video clips. The suspect was thoroughly interrogated but no fruitful result was achieved,” it added.

The IGP said security in shape of special guards including one head constable and three foot constables under the supervision of inspector Noorzali Khan had been provided to the girl and her family.

The complainant had claimed that around two years ago, the accused had blamed her brother for handing over a cellphone to a female member of their family and despite his denial on oath, the panchayat (jirga) had ordered her brother to pay a fine of Rs300,000 to them.

She said despite the decision of the panchayat, the accused led by Sajawal had paraded her naked in the village.

The girl said she had gone in the morning to fetch water from a pond along with some other women and while returning back the nine accused persons forcibly ripped apart her clothes. She said that when the accompanying women tried to give a shawl to cover herself, the accused threw it away.

The girl said initially, the local police didn’t cooperate with her family members and even refused to register FIR but did it only after the local people protested.

She said before registering the FIR of the incident, the local police had booked her brother and uncle in a concocted case to pressure the family not to pursue her case.

In the initial FIR, the police had only mentioned that the girl was taken inside a residence and beaten and was not paraded in the streets.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2018