TOBA TEK SINGH: Judicial magistrate Abid Islam Kurriana on Thursday extended for four days the physical remand of the two accused in the motorway (M-4) gang rape case.

Police had requested the magistrate to extend the remand to further investigate the accused. The two accused were produced in court and the victim also recorded her statement.

The girl later told reporters that the Gojra city police SHO and the investigation officer were not cooperating with her and she was forced to sit in the police station for hours whenever she was called there.

Advocate Fakhar Awan alleged that police were reluctant to arrest the woman who brought his client to Gojra on the pretext of arranging her interview at a boutique.

An 18-year-old girl of Toba Tek Singh was gang-raped in a car by two men who drove her to the motorway on Oct 11. According to the FIR, complainant Ms Shaheen Akhtar, a resident of Garden Town No 1, informed the Gojra city police that a woman offered job to her niece at a boutique. As she reached the specified place at Gojra for interview, she said, the woman’s accomplices (both residents of Chak 288 JB) took her to Faisalabad by motorway and raped her in the car at gunpoint.

Later, the complainant said, they dropped the girl at Faisalabad interchange from where she returned to Gojra by a van.

Police arrested both accused and impounded the car. The woman, however, is still at large.

ACCIDENT: Eight passengers were injured when a van they were travelling by overturned on Jhang-Layyah Road near Roddu Sultan on Thursday.

Rescue 1122 reported that the van overturned when its tyre burst. Eight passengers were injured and two of them were administered first aid on the spot while six others -- all women -- were taken to the Athara Hazari THQ hospital. They were identified as Perveen Bibi, 38, Sumera Mumtaz, 30, her daughter Aleesha, 7, Bhag Bhari, 45, Razia Bibi, 40, and Fakhra Bibi, 16. The doctors referred three of the injured to the Jhang DHQ hospital in a critical condition.

FATAL BURNS: An infant was burnt to death when boiling water fell on him at Gojra on Thursday evening.

Police said Hasnain, son of Wasim, was playing near oven at his house at Hafeez Park when the water boiling in a pot fell on him. He was taken to Gojra’s THQ hospital where he succumbed to burns.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2021