Police arrest five over stripping, torturing four women in Faisalabad market

Police have arrested five men on charges of assaulting, stripping and filming four women in Faisalabad's Bawa Chak Market on Monday.

Inspector General of Police (IGP) Punjab Rao Sardar Ali Khan has said that accused of making video of abuse and torture of  women viral in a Faislabad market do not deserve any sympathy.

He said that as per directions of Chief Minister Punjab Sardar Usman Ahmad Khan Buzdar, police have arrested all the accused involved and further legal action is being taken against them.

Rao Sardar Ali Khan said that as soon as the incident was reported, I had directed the arrest of all the accused. Upon which Faislabad police arrested two accused at night whereas police under leadership of CPO Faisalabad arrested 03 more accused.

IG Punjab said that Punjab Police have been following the policy of zero tolerance on incidents of violence, harassment and abuse of women and children and the culprits of this incident would also be punished severely by the court.

The matter had surfaced when a video of the four women went viral on social media.

https://twitter.com/AFZALCHOUHAN4/status/1468101985903824899

Subsequently, a first information report (FIR) was registered at Millat Town police station against four named suspects — Saddam, the owner of Usman Electric Store, and his employee, Faisal, Zaheer Anwar, and Faqeer Hussain, the owner of a sanitary products' shop — and 10 unidentified suspects on behalf of one of the victims.

According to the FIR, the complainant, a garbage-picker, went to Bawa Chak Market with three other women to collect garbage on Monday at around 10:30am.

She told police that they were thirsty and went inside a shop, Usman Electric Store, and asked for a bottle of water from one of the suspects, Saddam, whom they identified as the owner of the shop. But Saddam began shouting at them, accusing them of entering his shop with the intention to steal, the FIR said, adding that other suspects also reached the shop upon hearing him shouting.

They began beating the four women, stripped them and dragged them through the market. "They continued to beat us for around an hour and made our videos in naked condition," the FIR quoted the complainant as saying. Later, some family members of the victims reached the market and passersby gathered at the spot who pleaded to the suspects to let the women go, according to the FIR.

"The suspects committed gross injustice by stripping us, dragging us through the market and torturing us and strict action should be taken against them," the complainant said in the FIR.

In addition, IG Punjab Rao Sardar Ali Khan took notice of the incident of setting fire to a woman selling clothes in Sargodha.

IG Punjab sought report of the incident from RPO Sargodha and directed to arrest the accused involved in the incident as soon as possible and take strict legal action. Sargodha police while taking a timely action arrested two accused namely Abdul Jabbar and Muhammad Tauseef. IG Punjab directed DPO Sargodha to liaise with the victim and review all aspects to ensure timely delivery of justice to the victim.