As the city police mull ways to proceed with the investigations in the Minar-i-Pakistan assault case in the court, they believe that out of the 400 odd unnamed people mentioned in the first information report (FIR), only a hundred or so are likely to face trial. The rest could beat the rap, as it were, on grounds including non-identification by the victim and/ or non-availability of evidence against them.

Sources privy to the investigations say that with the help of cellular phone data collected from 28,000 connections, via geo-fencing, the police have shortlisted 791 suspicious numbers. Of these, 60 people are located in Lahore alone. The rest are said to be from other districts. The shortlisted ones are believed to have attacked the victim on August 14.

TNS has learnt that the police were unable to collect video evidence from the Safe City cameras installed near Minar-i-Pakistan because these were found to be out of order. Instead they made use of the videos that had gone viral on social media shortly after the incident happened. All these videos have been sent for forensic tests. Fingerprints from the victim’s torn clothes have also been sent to the laboratory to establish their involvement and identification.

So far, the police have questioned over 300 people, in a bid to trace all the culprits. Over 100 men have been taken into custody for further investigation. Rambo, a partner of the victim, has also been medically examined. New PPC sections have been added to the case.

However, the police have detained only about 130 suspects. The rest have been let go by the police. At the time of filing this story, the police was busy with the identification parade with respect to the 130 accused who have been sent to jail on judicial remand.

SSP Mansoor Aman says that the victim and her five friends, who were accompanying her at the time, will be present at the parades. “Identification of the culprits by the victim and her colleagues is a must,” says Aman. “If the accused are not identified by the victim, it will be very difficult to convict them.”

Aman says the police have a good deal of evidence, in the form of social media videos and the data on the culprits’ movement, collected through geo-fencing and the National Data Base Authority (NADRA), which indicates their involvement in the crime.

“Usually, in such cases, identifying each and every culprit is humanly impossible,” he adds. “The victim’s failure to identify all the culprits will only benefit the latter.”

Of the 400-odd unnamed people mentioned in the first information report (FIR), a hundred or so are likely to face trial. The rest could beat the rap, as it were, on grounds including non-availability of evidence against them.

The SSP says some of the culprits were arrested from outside Lahore, chiefly, Jhang, Sargodha and Faisalabad.

CCPO Ghulam Mehmood Dogar rejects the notion that the Punjab government has wrongly penalised some police officials for failing to respond in time.

He praises the services of the former Operations DIG Sajid Kiani, for the police department.

Dogar says the “concerned SHO is the real culprit. He showed great irresponsibility and dereliction of duty in keeping his seniors in the dark and misinforming them about the incident. That is precisely why the police could not immediately comprehend the seriousness of the situation. The minute they did, they responded promptly to rescue the victim from the clutches of the mob.

“We are in the process of tracing the other culprits. I assure you that no stone will be left unturned to arrest all those involved in the incident.”

Advocate Assad Abbas Butt, a lawyer at the Lahore High Court (LHC), says that although the Minar-i-Pakistan incident involves is a heinous crime and the police investigations are making headway, there are a number of questions that must be answered.

First, whether the circumstantial, digital and video evidence collected from the crime scene is adequate. Will a court convict the culprits on the basis of the evidence collected through these devices?

“The court will decide the case in the light of the CCTV camera footage and other digital evidence after they are corroborated by eyewitness accounts and identification of the accused by the victims. Forensic test is a must for the CCTV footage and other digital evidence collected from the scene of the crime. The people who made the videos will have to appear before the court.”

The writer is a senior journalist and can be reached at ahsanzia155@gmail.com