LAHORE: A senior Pakistani investigator who is part of the team carrying out a manhunt for suspects in the recent gang rape of a mother said on Monday the main suspect in the case had escaped being caught during a police raid because media furor alerted him to police zeroing in.
Protests were held in several Pakistani cities over the weekend over the handling of the investigation into the gang rape of a mother traveling with her children on a highway last Tuesday, as police launched a manhunt for the suspects which they said they had identified through DNA tracing.
Punjab’s Inspector General of Police Inam Ghani said at a press conference on Saturday that police had used cell phone data to track 27-year-old suspect Abid Ali and carried out raids at a village near Punjab’s Sheikhupura district to arrest him.
Prior to the raid, local media channels began running Ali’s photos and other identification documents, which tipped him off and he fled, a senior official who is a part of the team leading the manhunt told Arab News.
“If the media had not run off with the news provided by the Punjab Forensic Science Agency about the suspect, we would have caught him,” the official, who requested anonymity, said. “We missed him by mere seconds.”
He also blamed the Punjab police for prematurely sharing the names and photos of the suspects with the media.
The IG’s office and the spokesperson for the Punjab police did not respond to multiple calls seeking comment for this piece. Shehzada Sultan, Deputy Inspector General Investigations, and Zeeshan Asghar, Senior Superintendent Police Investigation, who are on a six-member investigation team commissioned for the rape case, could also not be reached.
For his part, IG police Ghani has held the media responsible for “alerting” the suspect.
“Unfortunately, since this [information about the suspect] had come out in the public domain, the suspect knew we were getting close,” Ghani told reporters.
Police say the woman, believed to be in her thirties, was traveling from Lahore to Gujranwala, main cities in Pakistan’s populous Punjab province, on Tuesday night when her car ran out of fuel.
She phoned police for help, but before they arrived two men took her and her children out of the vehicle at gunpoint and raped her beside the highway.
'Missed by seconds': Investigator says media furor tipped off suspect in Pakistan rape case
https://arab.news/rxee7
'Missed by seconds': Investigator says media furor tipped off suspect in Pakistan rape case
- Prior to police raid in a village this weekend, local media channels began running Abid Ali’s photos and identification documents, which led him to flee
- Member of investigation team blames Punjab police for prematurely sharing names and photos of suspects with media
Four people, including two policemen, killed in twin blasts in northwest Pakistan
- Attack on police van in South Waziristan and motorbike-mounted IED in Lakki Marwat hits KP province
- Violence comes amid a surge in militancy and cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD: At least four people, including two policemen, were killed and about 20 others wounded in two separate blasts in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday, officials said, the latest violence in a region grappling with militant violence.
One explosion targeted a police patrol van in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan district near the Afghan border, while another blast caused by explosives mounted on a motorbike struck a market area in Lakki Marwat district, according to police officials and preliminary reports.
The incidents come amid rising militant violence in Pakistan’s northwest, where authorities say armed groups operate from across the border in Afghanistan, straining relations between Islamabad and the Taliban administration in Kabul, with both sides engaged in a military conflict since last month.
“The control room received information in the evening about a bomb blast targeting a police van in Wana Bazaar,” a police official in the area, who did not want to be named, confirmed while speaking to Arab News over the phone.
He confirmed two deaths in the incident while saying more than 25 people had been injured.
The official said rescue teams responded promptly and shifted three seriously injured people to a nearby hospital in Wana.
In another incident during the day in Lakki Marwat, an improvised explosive device attached to a motorbike exploded near shops.
“Two people have been killed and about 10 have been injured in an IED blast in Lakki Marwat,” Raza Khan, Deputy Superintendent of Police in Bannu, told Arab News.
“The deceased are identified as Shoaib Ur Rehman and Furqan Ullah,” he added. “Shoaib, the owner of the shop, was the brother of the Lakki peace committee head.”
Peace committees in the region are informal, community-based groups that work with security forces to report militant activity and maintain order, making their members frequent targets of attacks.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attacks and expressed grief over the incidents.
“I strongly condemn the blast near a police patrolling vehicle in Wana Bazaar,” Naqvi said in a statement, confirming the killing of four people, including two police personnel.
“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police are on the front line in the war against terrorism,” he said, noting the force had made “unforgettable sacrifices” in the fight against militant groups.
Militant violence has surged in Pakistan’s border regions in recent months, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban government of allowing militant groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), to operate from Afghan territory — a charge Kabul denies — as cross-border tensions between the two neighbors have escalated.
