Fighting intimidation: Raped and robbed, victim appeals for justice

Claims the accused threatened her with dire consequences.

HARIPUR:  A married woman subjected to rape and blackmail by rapists, who filmed the incident, petitioned the court for registering an FIR against the accused, on Saturday.

The court has summoned the concerned station house officer on Monday. Nazia*, 25, a resident of Kangra village petitioned the district judge, Haripur, after the police refused to register a case.
She said she was asleep with her two minor children when two persons entered her room after scaling the boundary wall on Eidul Fitr. Her husband was with his first wife in a neighboring village.
The accused whom she identified as Roshan* and Israr*, held her at gunpoint and looted Rs1,80,000 cash. They subsequently raped her in front of her two minor children and filmed the incident. They threatened her of dire consequences in case she told her family when they left.
Nazia called her husband the next morning and he lodged a complaint with the Kotnajibullah police nominating the two accused for robbery. She said she had concealed the rape fearing they might harm her husband and children.
The accused who were not booked by the police began to blackmail her and threatened to upload her movie on the internet if she failed to pay up or revealed their names.
She said the accused called her and threatened her on her mobile phone four days back. Her husband, who had eavesdropped on the conversation, contacted the Kotnajibullah police again for registration of an FIR but the police was using delaying tactics.
When approached for comments, police sources said that neither the woman nor her husband had lodged any complaint of rape or robbery with them and there was no mechanism to determine the veracity of the claim of a married woman after four months. However, he confirmed that one of the accused has been booked.
This was the second case of rape in which the incident was filmed in a fortnight in Hazara. A girl was sexually assaulted in Kaghan valley and her rapist had filmed the crime and uploaded the movie on the internet. She had also kept quiet about the rape out of fear. He was later arrested by the police.
Names have been changed to protect identity
Published in The Express Tribune, January 15^th, 2012.