ICC Note:
According to reports from Pakistan, two Christian girls from Pakistan’s Punjab province were abducted and raped at gunpoint by a local landlord yesterday. Police have arrested the landlord and are now searching for his accomplices. Christian women often face their own unique brand of persecution in Pakistan for being both the wrong religion and the wrong gender. In many cases, Christian women are seen as easy targets for sexual assault and forced conversion because of their low social status. Please pray for justice to be done in this case.
12/5/2014 Pakistan (Outlook) – Two Christian teenage girls have been allegedly gang-raped at gunpoint in Pakistan’s Punjab province, in yet another incident targeting the minority community in the country.
The incident took place yesterday at Jeranwala tehsil in Faisalabad district, some 150 kilometers from here.
The victims’ father told the police that his two daughters – aged 14 and 16 – had gone outside the home to answer nature’s call early yesterday morning as there was no washroom at his house.
He said when the girls did not return after a while, the family lodged a complaint with the local police station after which a search was launched.
The girls, however, were found lying unconscious on a road several kilometers away from the village in the afternoon. They were immediately rushed to the district headquarters hospital where their condition was stated to be out of danger.
“In their statement to the police, the girls alleged that a local landlord Muhammad Shabaz and his three accomplices abducted them at gunpoint and took them to a deserted place where they gang-raped us,” station house officer Lundianwala Muhammad Nasir said.
The officer said that an FIR has been lodged against Shahbaz and his accomplices over the complaint filed by the girls’ father.
He further said that Shahbaz has been arrested while police were raiding several hideouts to nab the other accused who are absconding.
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