Peshawar: Army soldier remanded in kidnapping, rape case

PESHAWAR: An anti-terrorism court on Wednesday remanded a soldier and the main accused allegedly involved in the Uzma Ayub kidnapping and rape case into police custody for an additional two days.

SSP Investigation Attiqullah Wazir sought another 10 days from the anti-terrorism court judge, Muhammad Ibrahim, for the physical remand of Naseebullah Khan, a hawaldar in the Pakistan Army. He argued that the custody of the accused was required to the police till his DNA test was compared with that of the newborn child of the rape victim, Uzma Ayub.

“During interrogation, Uzma Ayub had informed me that she was raped by the accused soldier a month after she was kidnapped. Investigations also revealed that the accused was on leave during this period,” Attiqullah Wazir added.

For security reasons and threats to the rape victim after the murder of her brother Alamzeb, the chief justice of Peshawar High Court had shifted the rape case of Uzma Ayub and her brother’s murder from Kohat anti-terrorism court to Peshawar.

On January 27, Unit Commander Colonel Asad handed over the main accused, Naseebullah, to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police in Attock on the demand of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police that he was wanted in the rape case.

On January 28, the police produced the accused in the court, which granted his five-day physical remand to the police. The rape victim recently gave birth to a baby girl. The police, as per directives of Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, would now conduct DNA tests of the baby girl and Naseebullah to find the rapist and father of the illegitimate child. In her statement before Judicial Magistrate Asif Kamal in Takht-e-Nusrati tehsil of Karak district after her escape from captivity on September 19, 2011, Uzma Ayub claimed that police officers, the Pakistan Army soldier and others had repeatedly raped her after her abduction.

The original article can be found at The News.

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