Karachi court sends train gang-rape case accused to jail

KARACHI: A local court sent all accused of Bahauddin Zakaria Express gang-rape case to jail on judicial remand, ARY News reported on Monday.

The court of Judicial Magistrate-South while sending the accused to jail directed the investigation officer (IO) to submit case challan in the next hearing of the case.

In an earlier hearing of the train gang-rape case, the investigation officer had revealed that the suspects had also filmed the video of the gang rape.

He added that the investigators need to retrieve videos from the mobile phones of the criminals and recover their uniforms.

The court had extended the physical remand of the five arrested suspects including Muhammad Zahid, Aqib Muneer, Zohaib, Amir Raza and Abdul Hafeez.

Police said that the railway staffers had allegedly gang-raped the lady, when she was returning to Karachi from Multan. A case had been filed at the City Railway police station, whereas, the victim identified two suspects during the identification parade.

It was learnt that a ticket-checker had offered a seat in the air-conditioned compartment of the train to the woman who was travelling alone in an economy class and later he and four other railway staffers gang-raped her.

On Thursday, the victim had identified two of the suspects during an identification parade held in the court of the judicial magistrate Karachi South.

The victim had testified in court that the accused had gang-raped her on the Zakaria Express on May 27, after which the court made the identity parade report part of the case.

According to FIR, the incident occurred on May 27 when the victim, who hails from Karachi’s Orangi Town, boarded the train from Multan railway station for Karachi.

The FIR stated that the woman passenger purchased an economy class ticket for Karachi and when the Bahauddin Zakariya Express reached Rohri station, two ticket checkers and their in-charge allegedly lured her into a trap of offering a seat in the AC bogie.

The ticket checker – Zahid– and their in-charge, identified as Aqib, took the victim to an AC compartment of a bogie where they gang-raped her and fled from the scene.