Friday, the lawyer for the woman who was raped in F-9 Park said that Islamabad police killed the two suspects in a “fake encounter.” The lawyer called this a “extra-judicial killing.”
The brazen attack on a woman in a park in the capital city shocked the whole country and raised new concerns about the safety of women in the country.
On Thursday, however, police in Islamabad said that two young people who were killed in a “encounter” with police at the D-12 police picket were involved in the rape. The police also said that both suspects were wanted for other crimes and that one of them was a murder suspect who had run away.
Advocate Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and activist Dr. Farzana Bari called for an investigation into the killing of the suspects at a press conference in Islamabad.
Mazari-Hazir said that her client had told her on February 15 who the suspects were (Wednesday). She said that around 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, police called the victim to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) police station in I-9 to find out who the suspects were. Mazari-Hazir also said that the victim knew who the suspects were before her lawyers got to the police station at 4:55pm.
The lawyer said, “I know for sure that the two suspects who were arrested were in police custody on February 15 at the CIA’s police station in I-9.”
She also said that she sent a message to a police officer she knew as SSP Maria, telling her that DNA tests were likely to be done on the suspects since they were in police custody. “She gave a thumbs-up in response. She told me she got my message.”
She said that the police did something “weird” even though they had both suspects in custody. “They tweeted first that they had found where the suspects were. Then, they took that tweet down. Then they said that they are almost ready to put them in jail. Then they made up a story about a fake meeting that is 100% false and has no basis. They (the suspects) were in police custody when they were killed.
Mazari-Hazir asked the police what they were “trying to hide” and why they were trying to stop the suspects from going to court. “When the suspects were in custody and asked if they were afraid of the police, they said very clearly that they weren’t.”
She told the head of police in the capital, “In such a high-profile case, a whole story about an encounter couldn’t have been made up without your permission and your blessing.” So, you need to answer.”
She also said that the Islamabad IG, the police in the capital, and the head of the special investigation team would be to blame if the victim was hurt in any way.
She also said that after the alleged “encounter,” the victim went to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) to identify the dead bodies. She said again that her client had already named the suspects on February 15, so the process had already happened twice.
“They were being held by the police, and the police killed them. This wasn’t a meeting […] As members of society, as lawyers, and as people, we strongly disagree with killings that don’t follow the law. No law lets you be the judge, the jury, and the executioner.”
Mazari-Hazir said that she asked SSP Maria to test the suspects’ DNA on February 15. “Right now, we don’t know [if it was done], but from what little we know, we think it might have happened at Pims after the extra-judicial killing. We have no idea.”
The Formal Incident Report
Under Section 376, a first information report (FIR) was filed on February 2 at the Margalla police station in Islamabad (punishment for rape). The complainant said that she and a male coworker went to the park, where two men stopped them with guns and led them to a jungle.
The woman then told the men they could take anything they wanted, but they “beat her” so she wouldn’t make a sound and took her away from her coworker, according to the FIR.
She also said that when one of the men asked her what her relationship was with the colleague, she told him in a “loud voice,” so he hit her and said, “I’ll bring six or seven more people, and you have no idea what they’ll do to you.”
The man said he would search her, and she told him, “Go ahead, I don’t have any money.”
The suspect then told the victim to “be quiet,” the statement said. He or she then “aggressively shook my hair, shoved me to the ground, and did something vile.”
It also said that when she tried to grab the gun, the armed man hit her in the leg with it and “threw my clothes far away so I couldn’t run away.”
The victim said that the other man, who was called by the first suspect and was “not very old,” did the same “wrong thing” even though she begged and paid him not to.
The FIR said that after that, he asked the victim what she did for a living and told her “not to come to the park at this time.”
It was also said that the suspects “returned everything and even gave them a Rs1,000 note to keep quiet.” “They then told us to sit down, and they ran off into the jungle.”
The FIR said that the victim was taken to the Pakistan Institute Of Medical Sciences hospital for a medical checkup.
