12 suspects arrested in Lahore motorway gang rape: Punjab govt

Punjab government spokesperson Mussarat Cheema on Thursday said police had arrested 12 men suspected of involvement in the alleged gang-rape of a woman on the Lahore-Sialkot motorway.

Two “robbers” allegedly raped the woman at gunpoint in Gujjarpura area on Wednesday while she was waiting for help on the motorway after her car developed a fault.

A police official said as the woman crossed the toll plaza on the Lahore-Sialkot motorway, her car stalled either due to shortage of petrol or some fault.

Meanwhile, she got a call from a relative of Gujranwala, who asked her to call the police helpline for help while he also left from home to reach her. When he reached the location, he found the woman terrified with her clothes stained with blood.

The police official said two armed men found the woman alone, took her and her children to a nearby field at gunpoint and gang-raped her, adding that police had formed teams to trace the culprits.

Cheema said in a tweet today that Punjab Police and related departments were “working in close coordination to capture those involved in [the] painful motorway incident”.

“So far 12 suspects have been arrested and search is going on,” she said.

Meanwhile, Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari said that the ministry’s regional office “immediately asked for an action report from the police”.

The ministry received the report as well as a copy of the first information report (FIR) of the incident, she added.

PML-N President and Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif termed the incident “condemnable, shameful and saddening”.

“This is [a matter of] national shame and proof of the paralysis of the entire system of implementation of the law,” he said. He called for the investigation to be conducted along the lines of the Zainab case so that the suspect(s) would not be able to escape punishment during prosecution.

He also asked law enforcement agencies to work together to apprehend the suspect and get justice for the affected family.

Last night, Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar took “strict notice” of the incident and directed the Inspector General of Police to submit a report.

Buzdar gave instructions for arresting those involved in the incident as quickly as possible, adding that “justice would be provided to the woman”.