ISLAMABAD: Punjab law minister Raja Basharat on Friday said the motorway gang rape which took place earlier this week is a “blind incident with no evidence” amid demands from the PML-N for the Lahore police chief to resign over “victim blaming”.
“This is a blind incident. There is no overt evidence to take the matter forward. We will have to develop the evidence through an investigation and have it corroborated and only then will we be able to get to a point where we can have a concrete picture,” the law minister told reporters after surveying the crime scene on Lahore’s Ring Road highway, according to Geo News.
Late Wednesday night, a woman was allegedly assaulted, raped and robbed by multiple men in front of her children when her car ran out of fuel outside Lahore, near Gujjarpura.
Basharat said he “accepts” that it is a challenge for the Lahore police, and therefore, is a challenge for the Punjab government. “Our monitoring committee is reviewing all administrative aspects and we are looking at how we can take the investigation forward,” he added.
He also said a special committee formed by the Punjab police chief is investigating the incident under which about 28 teams are working. At this time the Punjab government and Chief Minister Usman Buzdar’s “total emphasis” is on apprehending the culprits, he added.
Earlier, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) spokeswoman Marriyum Aurangzeb demanded the removal of Lahore police chief Umer Sheikh from service over remarks which allegedly blamed the victim because she was driving at night without a male companion.
Sheikh had repeatedly chided the victim for driving at night without a man, adding that no one in Pakistani society would “allow their sisters and daughters to travel alone so late” in an interview with a private television channel soon after the incident. Human rights minister Shireen Mazari said his remarks were unacceptable. His remarks have been pounced upon by the opposition and rights activists.
In a press conference alongside women lawmakers of the party, Marriyum said as long as Sheikh continues to serve as CCPO Lahore, the “honour of women in Pakistan, Punjab and Lahore is not safe”. “The CCPO should be sacked for blaming the victim for the incident just to hide their own incompetence,” she added.
She said: “The CCPO Lahore is amazed why a woman was driving on motorway at night […] but is not amazed why the police had not reached to help the woman.”Meanwhile, protests were held in several cities on Friday. “We don’t want him in office,” protester Shaheena Khan said at a rally in Islamabad. “We want security from the police and the government. It is their job.”
Lawyer and women’s rights activist Khadija Siddiqi told AFP that Sheikh’s comments were part of an unfortunate and “very rampant” culture of victim blaming in Pakistan.
