GUJRAT: Police have arrested a drug addict who allegedly raped at least three students residing in a seminary located in Attawa locality in Gujranwala Saddar police station precincts.

As per police sources, the suspect was traced after the footage of the incident captured by a CCTV camera installed at the seminary started circulating on social media.

The sources said that, the suspect a resident of Attawa locality, is a drug addict.

They said that on the night of October 4, the suspect entered the seminary by scaling its boundary wall and raped three students aged between 11 and 14 years, who were asleep there.

Suspect was already on bail in a case of raping a boy

The suspect fled the scene, when a senior student woke up and tried to overpower him, they added.

One of the victims belonged to Kasur, while the two others are from Khyber Pakhtunkhaw.

On the complaint filed by the father of an 11-year-old student, a resident of Kasur, Saddar police registered a cases against the suspect under section 376-iii of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). The police sources say that the suspect had already been booked in another case of raping a boy in 2021. He was arrested but later got bail from a court, they added. The management of the seminary told the police that it did not report the matter to “avoid shaming of the victims and their families”.

Gujranwala police on Thursday produced the suspect in the court of Judicial Magistrate Awais Awan, who granted his four-day physical remand.

Earlier, in September at least five girls were raped by the husband of their teacher in a government school. The suspect was arrested.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2024