Police could have learnt lesson from earlier gang-rape incident

LAHORE:Police could have prevented the gang-rape of a woman on the motorway if they had learnt a lesson from the rape of a 19-year-old girl by robbers on a roadside in the Gujjarpura police limits about two months ago.

On July 2, 2020, neither the local police nor the PRU, Dolphin and other patrolling squads could help the ill-fated girl who was gang-raped alongside a road in the limits of Gujarpura police.

Unfortunately, Lahore police did not learn any lesson from the girl’s case. If police had made the patrolling system more effective by increasing police patrolling in the unpopulated city areas and highways, the mother of three children would have been saved from falling prey to the robbers-cum-rapists.

The latest incident has sent shivers down the spines of Lahorites. The criminals who only robbed people on pavements in the provincial metropolis are now freely using these spaces for the fulfillment of their culpable lust.

The question that arises here is that how these robbers have the audacity to commit such a heinous crime. Are the Dolphin and PRU officials really doing their job, or is the patrolling just another opportunity for these men to get together for a group hangout? For most of these officers and officials, this job has proved to be a double delight as they do not only get paid for doing nothing, but get to ramble through the city without any transportation cost to bear. It is the citizens who are being charged for these costs, by not just getting robbed of their valuables but dignity as well. The girl who was raped about two months back served as an assistant in a homeopathic clinic at Suggian village.

On the day of the incident, she along with her employer was on her way back home in a car when four armed robbers intercepted their vehicle and made them hostage at gunpoint. The robbers conducted thorough search of the victims and deprived them of their valuables, including cash and cell phones.

The two robbers forcibly dragged the girl out of the car, took her to the roadside and gang-raped her. The then IG Punjab Shoaib Dastgir had also taken notice of the incident as the present IGP Inam Ghani also directed Lahore police to submit a report and arrest the culprits. The newly-posted IGP Punjab Ghani pledged that if any such incident takes place in future, the police concerned will be answerable. When contacted, a spokesperson for Lahore Investigation Wing told that the four culprits involved in the girl’s case were arrested and jailed.