LAHORE: A judicial magistrate on Tuesday allowed Defence C police a six-day physical remand of the two suspects arrested for the alleged gang-rape of an Azeri woman a couple of days back in Lahore.

The 20-year-old Azerbaijan national had reportedly travelled to Pakistan for business purposes and was allegedly gang-raped by three men in a rented flat in a private housing society located near Raiwind on Friday night. Following the incident, the police arrested two of the suspects.

On Tuesday, the police produced the two suspects before Magistrate Azhar Mahmood at the Cantonment Courts.

The investigating officer sought a 14-day physical remand of the suspects for interrogation, collection of evidence and DNA examination. However, the magistrate allowed a six-day physical remand of the suspects.

Meanwhile, a session court granted interim pre-arrest bail to a female suspect in the case, restraining police from arresting her till Oct 5.

The Azeri woman had mentioned two women in her application to the police, who had allegedly met her in a café, before she was gang-raped.

One of the two women, mentioned by the survivor, appeared before the court, along with her lawyer, on Tuesday.

The lawyer argued that his client had been falsely implicated in the case with mala fide intention. He said she wanted to join the police investigation to prove her innocence.

He apprehended that his client would be arrested, requesting the court to grant her pre-arrest bail.

The court granted the suspect bail till Oct 5, with the directive to join the police investigation before the next hearing.

STATEMENT:In her Section 164 statement recorded before a judicial magistrate, the Azeri woman said she arrived in Islamabad from Istanbul on Sept 13 and stayed in Faisalabad for five days before travelling to Lahore.

“I had a plan to visit Skardu, but I could not go there because I was alone,” she said in the statement, a copy of which is available with Dawn.

According to her, on the day of the alleged incident, she sent messages to two women, asking them to meet her in Lahore. At around 11pm, she went to a cafe where she met one of them and later accompanied her to a house in Bahria Town to meet the other.

The complainant told the magistrate that around 2am, a white car arrived there carrying two men.

Later, they moved to an apartment, where two more men arrived.

According to the complainant, in a separate room, one of the women allegedly took between Rs20,000 and Rs30,000 from a suspect, saying the money was for a party, while the second woman also joined them.

The Azeri woman said she made it clear to the suspects that she “did not need money or alcohol”. She alleged that one of the suspects tried to touch her (in an inappropriate way) and locked her in a separate room.

She stated that when she asked about her female friends, she was told that they had left. The complainant alleged that when she tried to leave, she was told that she could not go because her female friends had taken money from the suspects.

The foreigner said that she offered to pay the sum received by the two women, but the suspects told her that she would have to drink alcohol with them before being allowed to leave the place.

After that, she alleged, the three men raped her.

She further stated that the suspects later bundled her into a car and threw her at an unknown location, threatening her with dire consequences if she approached the police with a complaint.

According to her statement, the suspects also snatched her handbag containing Rs200,000, and two mobile phones.

She said that she requested some passersby to help her call the police emergency number 15, following which the police arrived at the spot, where she was thrown by the suspects.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026