LAHORE: Kot Lakhpat police have arrested from Ghazi Abad a man accused of raping a 22-year-old woman on the pretext of performing a spiritual healing ritual, in a case that police say involved sustained access to the family’s home over a period of years.
According to a police spokesperson, the suspect, Shakeel, had been coming to the victim’s house for the past two years on the pretext of performing “dam” — a recitation-based healing practice. The suspect allegedly misled the woman under the pretext of the ritual and raped her.
According to the police spokesperson, the suspect also continued attempting to influence other members of the victim’s family.
Police have registered a case against the suspect Shakeel and handed him over to the Gender Crime Cell for further investigation.
SP Model Town Asad Ali said that elements who exploit women do not deserve any leniency, and that strict action will be taken against such suspects in accordance with the law.
In the initial report of the incident from Kot Lakhpat, the family of the young woman levelled the allegation against Pir Muhammad Shakeel.
According to the family, the suspect had been coming to the house of a man named Ahmed on the pretext of performing “dam” for the past year and a half, and had allegedly been targeting the woman on that same pretext over a long period.
Police took the suspect into custody and began investigation and legal proceedings into the incident.
Cases involving self-styled spiritual healers follow a recognisable pattern in Punjab’s crime record. Access is granted voluntarily by a family seeking treatment for illness, infertility, financial difficulty or perceived supernatural affliction. The healer establishes authority inside the household, obtains privacy with the person being “treated” on the grounds that the ritual requires it, and secures silence by framing disclosure as spiritually dangerous or socially ruinous.
The length of time involved in this case — two years by the police account, eighteen months by the family’s — is consistent with that pattern, in which the abuse continues precisely because the perpetrator has been invited in and is trusted by adults in the household.
The case comes as Punjab tightens protective legislation elsewhere, including new rules for nikah registrars aimed at curbing child marriages.
The referral of the case to the Gender Crime Cell is procedurally significant. Punjab Police established dedicated gender units to handle offences against women and children, staffed with women officers and trained investigators, with the aim of reducing the secondary trauma associated with repeated statements to unprepared male investigators at a general police station.
The cells are also responsible for coordinating the medico-legal examination and the recording of the survivor’s statement under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure before a magistrate — two steps whose timing and quality have repeatedly determined the outcome of sexual violence prosecutions in Punjab’s courts.
Legal practitioners note that prompt medico-legal examination, preservation of clothing and other physical evidence, and early recording of the Section 164 statement materially strengthen the prosecution case, while delay at any of those stages creates the evidentiary gaps that defence counsel rely on at the bail and trial stages.
Anyone experiencing or witnessing such abuse can approach the nearest police station, the Punjab Police helpline 15, or the Punjab Women Helpline 1043 for guidance and assistance.
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