LAHORE: Nishtar Colony police have arrested a rickshaw driver on charges of subjecting a young woman to violence and rape.
According to police, the suspect was traced and arrested from the Bank Stop area with the help of human intelligence.
According to SP Model Town Asad Ali, the woman was employed at a private shopping mall and had boarded a rickshaw to travel home after finishing her shift.
Police say the suspect allegedly threatened to kill her and took her to a house located on Ashiana Road, where he subjected her to violence and allegedly raped her.
According to police, the suspect subsequently left the woman near her home and fled. Nishtar Colony police took action and arrested the accused, identified as Abid. A case has been registered against him and the matter has been transferred to the Gender Crime Cell for further investigation.
SP Model Town Asad Ali said that elements who exploit women deserve no concession, and that strict action will be taken against such suspects in accordance with the law.
The transfer of the investigation to the Gender Crime Cell is a procedural step with real consequences, and it is worth explaining to readers what it changes.
Punjab Police established gender crime units to concentrate cases of sexual violence and violence against women with investigating officers who have received specialised training, in place of the general investigation staff of the police station. The rationale is grounded in a well-documented failure pattern: prosecutions in sexual violence cases in Pakistan collapse most often not at trial but during investigation — through delayed medico-legal examination, contaminated or unpreserved forensic evidence, statements recorded in ways that expose the complainant to pressure, and challans submitted without the material a court needs to convict.
The Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) Act 2021 attempted to address this by providing for special courts, time-bound trials, anti-rape crisis cells at designated hospitals, and protections for complainants including the recording of evidence in camera. Implementation has been uneven across districts, and the availability of a functioning crisis cell attached to a nearby teaching hospital remains the single largest practical determinant of whether forensic evidence is properly collected within the window in which it is usable.
Arrests are reported. Convictions are not, and that asymmetry is the central problem in Pakistan’s coverage of sexual violence.
An arrest within days, achieved through human intelligence rather than a complaint left to lapse, indicates that this investigation began correctly. Whether it ends correctly depends on things that will not generate a press release: whether the medico-legal examination was conducted promptly and by a qualified examiner, whether the DNA sample was collected and transmitted to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency within the usable period, whether the survivor’s statement under Section 164 was recorded before a magistrate, and whether she is protected from the pressure to compromise that ends a very large share of such cases before trial.
Support is available. Women facing violence in Punjab can contact the Punjab Women Helpline on 1043, or the Punjab Women Protection Authority’s Violence Against Women Centre in Lahore.
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