ISLAMABAD: Police in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore have booked three men for allegedly gang-raping an Azeri woman and were conducting raids to arrest them, a senior official said on Sunday, in the second such case involving foreign women in Pakistan’s Punjab province in three months.

A 20-year-old Azerbaijani woman told police she was taken to an unknown cafe by two women before three men took her to an apartment on the pretext of a joy ride, according to the first information report (FIR) of the incident.

She said the men took her to a flat where they drugged her drink and took turns raping her before leaving her near Ghazi Interchange in Lahore on Saturday afternoon. She also said that her two mobile phones were taken from her.

Syed Zeeshan Raza, deputy inspector general of police for investigation, told Arab News that police had identified the men involved in the gang rape and recovered the vehicle allegedly used in the crime.

“We have identified all the accused. The vehicle used in the crime has been taken into custody,” he said.

“Raids have been conducted on all known locations. And raids are continuing without pause. The accused will be arrested soon.”

When asked, the official declined to name the accused but said “this investigation is being monitored at the highest level.”

The woman, who had arrived in Pakistan around two weeks ago for business purposes, called police helpline 15 using a phone borrowed from a passerby after being dropped near Ghazi Interchange, according to the FIR.

The case has been registered at Defense C police station under sections 375A and 337J of Pakistan’s Penal Code that concern gang rape and causing hurt by means of poison.

It follows a similar incident in July this year in which two foreign women, one Dutch and the other a Venezuelan national, were rescued by police in Lahore’s upscale Defense neighborhood after they were allegedly abducted and sexually assaulted by four men.

Police at the time said the women had traveled to Pakistan after receiving an invitation from a local acquaintance. Investigators tracked the suspects using surveillance cameras and recovered the women within two hours after the father of one of the women made an emergency call from Spain.