Motorway incident: Jail officials fail to produce prime suspect before ATC

LAHORE: The jail officials have failed to produce one of the prime suspects, Abid Malhi, before the anti-terrorism court (ATC) during the hearing of motorway gang-rape case in Lahore today, ARY News reported on Tuesday.

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore conducted the hearing of the motorway gang-rape case to hold the trial of the prime suspect Abid Malhi after ordering authorities to carry out identification parade.

However, the jail officials failed to produce him before the ATC today. The officials told the court that the identification parade of the suspect did not conduct which was scheduled today. They sought more time from the ATC for carrying out an identification parade. The warrants of Malhi was also presented in the hearing.

Read: Court orders identification parade of motorway rape suspect

Later, the ATC judge accepted the plea of the jail officials and directed to produce the suspect in the next hearing scheduled on November 2 after the identification parade.

On September 9, the woman along with her children was waiting for help on the Lahore-Sialkot motorway after her car ran out of fuel when she was forcefully brought out of the car at gunpoint and gang-raped in Gujjarpura area on the outskirts of the provincial.

The woman who was gang-raped on the Lahore-Sialkot motorway last month picked out two prime suspects Abid Malhi and Shafqat during an identification parade on October 21.

Read: Prime suspect in motorway gang rape case sent to jail on 14-day remand

According to police, the identification parade had been taken place inside Lahore’s Camp Jail where the suspects were brought in front of the rape survivor who identified both of them as the two men who subjected her to sexual assault in front of her children on September 9.

Abid Malhi had been sent to jail on a 14-day remand by an anti-terrorism court following his arrest on October 13 while Shafqat was in police custody on physical remand. The court had ordered the police to hold the identification parade of the suspects inside the jail.