The 17-year-old girl was a resident of village Dalan-Jo-Tarr near Chelhar town.
Dawn quoted the girl's father as saying that the girl was 'raped by three men in mid-July in 2019 and the accused in the case are on bail'. Chelhar police had registered a first information report (FIR) against three men on rape charges.
The report said that not only the girl was sexually assaulted, she was also filmed by the suspects who took her to a house. Dawn reported that the case was postponed due to Covid lockdown and it was supposed to be heard on Oct 15 when the evidence was due.
"No fresh case was registered against the accused after the girl's death (until the filing of this report), however, one of the three suspects was arrested again by Chelhar police on the orders of Tharparkar SSP Hassan Sardar Niazi," it reported.
Chelhar Station House Office Mushtaq Malik said police would register a new case if the family lodges a complaint of blackmail or harassment, the newspaper reported.
Rape cases in Pakistan
On Sept 21, a resident of Gujranwala registered a complaint against an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) of the Punjab Police, alleging the police officer sexually assaulted her after she called the police emergency helpline 15 for assistance.
In a video, the girl said that the police officer who responded to her call raped her. She said the police have also not registered the case, as the respective DPO told her to withdraw the charges, assuring that the suspect would be held accountable.
On September 14, Gujranwala police arrested a man for allegedly molesting his 16-year-old stepdaughter multiple times in the Rajkot area of the district.
On Sept 18, two men allegedly raped a middle-aged woman in front of her daughters during a robbery at a house located in Peoples Colony near Raja Chowk, Faisalabad.
According to Batala Colony police, the two suspected robbers broke into the house and sexually assaulted the woman — who is a labourer by profession — before managing to get away with Rs200,000 and other valuable items.
Human rights activists and people from civil society in major cities of Pakistan, including Karachi, held demonstrations against the incident in the wake of the increase in rape cases. People demanded of the government to take measures in order to control such brutal and barbaric elements from the society.
Increase in demand for pepper spray:
In the wake of several rape cases across Pakistan over the past month, there has been an increase in the sale of self-defence weapons, such as pepper sprays, pocket knives and stun guns.
A report published on Geo News said that social media users, mostly women, are searching for stories that sell non-lethal weapons as they seek to protect themselves from potential predators. Amid an increasing demand, the stores have also started refilling their stocks.
“It is probably for the first time in decades that we are selling pepper sprays at our store — that too, after scores of women, especially young girls of school-going age, asked for this item in particular at our counters,” Geo quoted a mart owner in Karachi’s Saddar area as saying.