KARACHI: Railway police have arrested three employees of a private train service who allegedly gang-raped a female passenger returning to Karachi from Multan, and Pakistan Railways has ordered that all employees of private rail carriers be screened by intelligence agencies prior to employment, a railways official said on Tuesday.

The woman, whose name has been withheld by police, lodged a complaint with Railways Police in Karachi on Sunday, saying she had been raped by three workers of the company operating the Bahauddin Zakaria Express on which she was traveling home to Karachi from Multan.

“All three accused Zahid, Aqib and Zohaib have been arrested and a show cause notice has also been issued to the private operator of the train,” Babar Ali, director general public relations with the Pakistan Railways, told Arab News.

“All employees of private rail carriers will also be screened by the IB [Intelligence Bureau] and other intelligence services of the country,” he added.

According to a police complaint, a copy of which is available with Arab News, the woman arrived in Multan on Friday and was returning home to Karachi on economy class when Zahid, a ticket checker identified only by his first name in the police report, lured her to an air-conditioned compartment where he raped her along with his supervisor, Aqib, and another person, Zohaib.

The woman informed three unnamed security guards about her ordeal, but they did not help. Subsequently, she continued her journey to Karachi but stayed silent about her traumatic experience even after reaching home.

The official told Arab News the woman registered the case on the insistence of railway authorities after a local journalist reported the incident.

“It was when a news story appeared that a Pakistan Railways team, including female officials, visited her home to convince her to lodge a case against the accused,” Ali from Railways said, adding that the result of her medical examination had not been received.

Separately, Pakistan Railways has issued a show cause notice to the private rail company involved, which reads: “This heinous and inhuman crime has been committed by your staff in the running train. It clearly depicts that you hired such criminal minded people without proper scrutiny, care, investigation and police verification.”

Arab News tried to contact the private train service that operates Bahauddin Zakaria Express, but management did not return phone calls.

According to a handout circulated by Pakistan Railways, chief executive officer Farrukh Taimur Ghilzai said there would be no “compromise” on the safety of passengers.

“Railways is the safest means of travel in Pakistan and we will not allow its reputation to be tarnished,” Ghilzai said, adding that instructions had been issued to all contractors to prevent such incidents in the future.

The latest incident comes less than a week after two unidentified robbers gang-raped a 13-year-old child at gun-point in front of her family on a roadside near the central Pakistani city of Patoki.

The train incident evoked memories of a widely reported assault in September 2020 in which a woman was gang-raped on a major highway in front of her two children.

Fewer than three percent of sexual assault or rape cases result in a conviction in Pakistan, according to the Karachi-based group War Against Rape.

Former prime minister Imran Khan’s government passed an anti-rape criminal law in parliament last year.

The law aims to create a national sex offenders register, protect the identity of survivors and set up special fast-track courts to hear rape cases and reach a verdict within four months.