LAHORE: A 20-year-old Azerbaijani woman was drugged and gang-raped by three men in Lahore’s Defence area on Friday night (September 25), police said.
The victim, Diana, a resident of Baku, had been in Lahore for 15 to 20 days on business and was staying at a house on Raiwind Road, an area known for its modern housing schemes. She had reportedly visited Pakistan twice before.
According to the FIR, registered at Defence C police station against three unidentified men, two women invited Diana to dinner and took her to a café in DHA at around 11pm, where three male friends of theirs were already present. Diana said she could identify the three men and the two women by face.
After dinner, she said, the men offered to take her for a drive but instead took her to a flat in Defence. There, according to the FIR, she was given a drink containing an intoxicating substance, after which the three men gang-raped her through the night. The suspects then abandoned her near Ghazi Interchange and fled, taking her iPhone and another expensive mobile phone with them.
The gang-rape is the latest attack targeting foreign women in Lahore, which is already suffering a wave of sexual violence. The city logged 1,108 sexual assault cases in eight months, and the number continues to rise daily.
A witness who was at the café, and who asked not to be named, said Diana arrived with two women who appeared to be her friends, and they joined a group of three men already seated there. The group seemed to be chatting in a friendly manner, the witness said.
Police have detained three people from Bahria Town and Defence on suspicion of facilitating the crime. According to police sources, the detainees are relatives of the alleged suspects, identified as Tanveer and Mohsin. The suspects’ names have been placed on the stop list to prevent them from leaving the country, and raids are under way to arrest them. Investigators are also examining the role of the two women who took Diana to the café.
Police said a white Sonata was used to transport Diana. The vehicle, which belongs to suspect Tanveer, was recovered from the house of a relative of the main accused and has been taken into police custody. Police have also obtained images allegedly showing the suspects standing outside a market in the Defence area.
Lahore Investigation Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Syed Zeeshan Raza took notice of the incident and formed special teams, led by SP Cantt Investigation Asim Iftikhar, to arrest the suspects. He said police had obtained data from the Punjab Safe City Authority and were examining the images and other evidence to trace the movements of those involved. Everyone involved would face legal action without discrimination, he said, adding that the investigation would be completed on merit.
Diana underwent a medical examination following the gang-rape, and police said further facts were expected to emerge from the medical report.
Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML) Lahore General Secretary Chaudhry Hameed-ul-Hassan Gujjar called for the arrest of all suspects and a transparent investigation. Noting that it was the second such incident involving foreign women in the area within months, he asked the Punjab government to explain what measures had been taken to protect foreign visitors after the earlier case, saying any lapse in their security could damage Pakistan’s international image.
Second such case since July
Earlier in July, two foreign women, Stephanie Adriana Mo-Asim of the Netherlands and Astrid Robinson Bracho of Venezuela, alleged that they had been abducted and gang-raped in the same Defence C police jurisdiction. Police rescued them within two hours of an emergency call to the Rescue 15 helpline made from Spain by the father of one of the women, tracing them through Safe City surveillance cameras. Four suspects were arrested: Muhammad Raza Dar, the prime suspect, along with Hassan Raza, Sikandar Khan and Sajid Ali.
According to the FIR, the women travelled to Pakistan at the invitation of Dar, a close relative of an influential political figure, whom they had first met in Singapore in October 2025. Investigators said Dar had arranged the women’s Pakistani visas before their arrival. The women alleged that on June 29 they were abducted by Dar and his accomplices, who demanded a $1.5 million ransom for their release. The FIR also contains allegations of repeated sexual assault, threats at gunpoint, physical abuse and extortion. A Lahore court later granted police physical remand of the four suspects.
Police claim of falling rape cases questioned
The latest case comes as Lahore police claim that strict action has brought rape cases down by 72%. Yasir Shami host Daily Pakistan disputed the figure, saying police officers were “misleading” Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz.
The host said rape cases in Punjab had doubled by 2025 compared with 2021, reaching 8,553. He said the 72% reduction was based on six months of data measured against those inflated 2025 figures, and that a proper comparison should cover 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Shami said cases were being reported daily from Chakwal, Rawalpindi, Gujrat and Lahore, including four to six a day while the chief minister was visiting China last month. The Diana case was the latest high-profile example, he said, adding that “young girls are not safe anywhere”.
Shami said reported cases showed only part of the picture, alleging that some officers did not register rape cases out of fear of the chief minister, while many parents did not approach police at all to protect their daughters’ honour.
Shami also criticised the police handling of the deaths of two women in Lahore police custody, saying the officers accused in that case were the ones investigating it and that it should have been handed to the FIA as a matter of custodial torture. He also asked what had become of the case of the two foreign women abducted in July, saying Pakistan’s image was tied to it.
The chief minister has repeatedly said such crimes cross her “red line”. “Just wait and see how much these case numbers rise by the end of 2026,” Shami said.
Independent figures also point to a wide gap between reported cases and justice. Punjab recorded 4,641 rape cases in 2024 and a conviction rate of 0.4 percent, according to the Sustainable Social Development Organisation, reported earlier this month.