ATC irked by no-show of IOs, witnesses in child rape case

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Friday ordered the prosecution to bind police to produce witnesses against a man facing trial for allegedly raping at least five children.

The accused, Amjad Ali, was booked by police on the allegations of abducting minor girls from different parts of the city and subjecting them to sexual assaults.

The ATC-X was scheduled to record the testimonies of prosecution witnesses on Friday but neither any of them nor the investigation officers (IOs) appeared. The jail authorities, however, produced the accused.

Expressing his displeasure at the absence of the witnesses and officers, the judge directed the prosecution to bind the IOs to produce the remaining witnesses and case properties on the next hearing on July 19.

Ali, 30, who works as a labourer, has been charged with kidnapping and rape of five underage girls. According to the prosecution, he was arrested during a bungled attempt to kidnap his sixth victim. The cases against him were registered under the sections 363 (punishment for kidnapping) and 376 (punishment for rape) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with the Section 7 (acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act at the Shah Latif Town, Sukkan and Quaidabad police stations between 2015 and 2018.

The same court in May had sentenced a man to life imprisonment for subjecting a 12-year-old girl to gang rape with two other men five years ago. The convict was also ordered to pay a fine of Rs200,000 to the victim.

The judge had observed, “Unfortunately, we are living in an age where the sexual lust of some people has gone to an extent which has made even small and young babies vulnerable to such assaults.”

He added that though courts were not reformists yet a heavy duty lied on them to award exemplary punishments in proved cases of sexual violence to make it a bad bargain for the likeminded philanderers.