KHANEWAL-In an attempt to avoid rape, a 16-year-old girl jumped off second floor of a private hospital and died here on Monday.
Staff of the hospital fled the scene after locking the premises, eye-witnesses said.

Doctors at DHQ Hospital Khanewal confirmed the girl was raped. The police have registered a case under Section 376/302 against Saim, son of owner of the hospital, Dispenser Mudassar and aunt of the deceased girl.

According to eye-witnesses and the affected family, 16-year-old Samia Yousaf, a resident of Ahmed Nagar, jumped from the window of a room at the second floor of a private hospital situated in Block No-5 Khanewal, when ‘someone’ allegedly tried to rape her. She got critical head injuries and died on the spot, while her aunt Samina Bibi, who was with her, injured critically. Initially, the police didn’t took any notice of the incident and the City Police SHO was ‘overheard’ describing the blood stains, at the spot where the girl had fallen, as marks of “Pan Peak.” Though the police termed head injuries caused death of the girl, they did not bother to investigate into the reason behind it.

Sources informed that when the dead body was brought to the DHQ Hospital, no one bother to carry out the medico-legal formalities. After some time, relatives of the girl took back her dead body to home without post-mortem.

However, as local TVs broke story of the incident and Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif took notice of it, the police sprung into action.
A police contingent led by DSP Maqbool Jutt rushed to the spot and collected circumstantial evidence. They visited the hospital which was locked but fan was running in the room from which the girl had allegedly jumped off. “There were signs of resistance and blood marks on the bed of that room,” a police official who requested anonymity said. He said that there were pieces of broken bangles and blood stains of the girl are also there at the place from where she had jumped.

The police also ‘brought back’ dead body of the deceased girl to the DHQ Hospital for autopsy.

According to DSP Maqbool Jutt, the police have taken Samina Bibi, aunt of the girl, into custody for interrogation while another accused Saim was surrendered to the police by his father Dr Mehboob Paracha. The DSP said that act of the woman are suspected as she brought the girl to the hospital. “She might have been in connivance with the accused,” he suspected.

Khanewal DPO Jahanzaib Nazir Khan said that the police would spare no effort to bring in the culprits to the book.