Balakot police claim to have recovered a girl who was forced into prostitution by her lover and another couple.
Acting on an intelligence report regarding a brothel being run by a couple in Mohallah Hasan, police arrested two women and a man while three other men managed to escape during the raid, SHO Syed Matloob Shah told the media.
The arrested couple was identified as Rafaqat and his wife Dilshad Bibi, while Naheeda*, the victim, was also taken into custody. They were arrested under sections 371 A/34, 292 and 293 of the Pakistan Penal Code.
Naheeda said in her statement before a magistrate that, “she hails from Dadar village in Mansehra. Naheeda added that she was 12 when her father was killed in the devastating earthquake on October 8, 2005, after which her mother married again in Karachi.
Naheeda said she felt uneasy with her stepfather and requested her mother to send her back to their native village. She then came to Mansehra in 2006 to meet her relatives and during her stay started seeing Kifayatullah, a resident of Kohistan, who promised to marry her.
Naheeda told the court that she decided to marry Kifayatullah and agreed to elope with him to Lahore. However, instead of marrying her, Kifayatullah not only molested her repeatedly for several weeks, but also forced her to ‘entertain’ his friends.
After a few months, the accused took her back to Mansehra and handed her over to Rafaqat and his wife Dilshad. Quoting the victim’s statement, the SHO said Naheeda was forced to become a sex worker.
After Naheeda’s statement, police registered another criminal case against Kifayatullah and his brother Abdul Qayyum, Rafaqat, and his wife Dilshad, for kidnapping the victim.
(*Name has been changed to protect the victim’s identity)
