LAHORE - Six men were arrested yesterday for raping a 15-year-old girl in a hotel room following a police raid on the Upper Mall.
Cops raided the Seven-Star hotel located in the Race Course police precincts late Friday night and arrested six men after rescuing the girl from one of the rooms. The victim was shifted to a hospital in unconscious condition.
A police officer told the media that a criminal case was filed against nine men and six of them are nominated as accused persons in the First Information Report. The hotel manger and his assistant are at large.
The prime suspect was named by police as Mian Adnan, said to be a stage-drama producer. Raids are underway for his arrest. Local TV channels yesterday aired pictures of the prime suspect with Punjab Education Minister Rana Mashhood, a member of ruling party PML-N.
However, the minister, who is himself facing corruption-related probe, denies any relation with the suspect.
According to initial investigations, the girl was gang-raped and abused by at least nine men in the hotel room. According to doctors, there were visible torture marks on her body.
The victim’s sister told the investigators that the girl was taken to the hotel after being abducted at gunpoint from outside her house in Rana Town near Multan Chungi. Police are investigating her claims.
A source close to the investigations said that a local pimp “handed over” the underage victim to his clients in the hotel, known for prostitution and drug business. The hotel is owned by Chairman Pakistan Citizen Movement Hafiz Ghulam Mohy-ud-Din.
The police stormed into the hotel late Friday night after someone called the Rescue-15 service to report that a “teenage girl was being abused by several men” there. Six men are in police custody and being interrogated in connection with the brutal assault, a police spokesperson said.
“A criminal case has been filed against nine men for raping the teen,” he confirmed The Nation.
Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif took notice of the rape and directed the capital city police officer to send back a detailed report of the incident. A government spokesman yesterday said that the chief minister directed “that justice be provided to the affected family at any cost and action be taken against the culprits according to the law.”
Further investigations were underway.