Couple sentenced to 17 years in prison for kidnap, rape of minor girl

A sessions court has awarded a collective sentence of 17-year imprisonment to a couple in a case pertaining to kidnapping and raping a minor girl.

Ghulam Rasool and his wife Zaiba alias Naseem were found guilty of kidnapping a ten-year-old girl from Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and taking her to their house, where the man assaulted her in September 2020.

Additional Sessions Judge (South) Ashraf Hussain Khowaja pronounced his judgement after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides, ruling that the prosecution succeeded in establishing charges of abduction and rape against the accused.

The judge awarded seven-year imprisonment to the couple for offence punishable under Section 364-A (kidnapping or abducting a person under the age of fourteen) of the Pakistan Penal Code. He sentenced Ghulam Rasool to ten years in jail for rape punishable under Section 376 of the PPC and ten years to his wife for committing offence punishable under Section 109 (abetment) of the PPC.

Both the convicts were ordered to pay a fine of Rs100,000 each or undergo additional six months’ imprisonment. The judge said that the sentences awarded to the convicts shall run concurrently with the benefit of Section 382-B of the CrPC extended to them.

State prosecutor Irfana Qadri contended that on September 6, 2020, Ghulam Rasool and Zaiba kidnapped the minor girl after giving her juice laced with some sedatives at the JPMC and took her to their house in Dhabeji, where she was subjected to sexual abuse.

Advocate Bahzad Akbar of the Legal Aid Society, who represented the complainant, argued that the accused were arrested from their house on pointation of the victim, who returned home on September 8. Another teenage girl was also recovered during the raid, he said.

He said that witnesses' testimonies, including the statement of the victim, and medical evidence linked the accused with the commissioning of the offence, requesting the judge to punish them as per the law. The victim testified that she went to sell juice, bottled water and face masks at the JPMC when a woman gave her a plastic bag containing biryani which she ate and felt thirsty. The girl recounted that she then went towards the gynae ward where another woman gave her juice after she asked her about water, adding that she drank the juice and become semi-conscious. A man, who accompanied the woman, took them on a motorcycle to their house.

The victim said the man sexually abused her while the woman would beat her and make her do home chores. When she raised hue and cry, they left her on the main road, after which she inquired about the Saddar route bus and took one to reach home.

Another victim deposed that she went to the hospital for treatment on September 9, 2020 when the couple met her. She said the couple enticed her into having lunch with them and later took her to their house on the pretext of dropping her at her residence.