Kashmore gang-rape: Main suspect shot dead by accomplice

The main suspect in the Kashmore gang-rape case has been shot dead, the police announced on Friday night.

Rafique Malak has been killed, SSP Amjad Ali Shaikh confirmed to SAMAA TV. He was in police custody on three-day judicial remand. Larkana DIG Nasir Aftab also confirmed the news.

They said he was taken on the raid because he told them about Bugti's location.

Earlier in the day the Kashmore police arrested a second suspect in the gang-rape of a mother and her four-year-old daughter. The second arrest was also confirmed by SSP Amjad Shaikh. He said Bugti was arrested in Balochistan's Sui, where he fled after the rape. Malak was already in custody and had confessed to the rapes.

The police claim they took Malak to arrest Bugti, who opened fire when he saw the police. Malak was killed in the crossfire, according to the SSP.

In other developments in the case, the four-year-old victim's condition has become critical once again and she was initially shifted from the Chandka Medical Hospital in Larkana to the Children Hospital’s Emergency Ward and later shifted via ambulance to Karachi. She is being shifted to the Aga Khan University Hospital with her mother, according to the CMH administration.  

Terrorism clauses have also been added to the FIR.

The Sindh government has also vowed to fund the rehabilitation of the victims.

The case

Police said a group of suspects lured the woman, who is from Karachi, with the promise of a Rs40,000 job in Kashmore. The woman and suspects met at a hospital in Karachi.

The FIR says that the woman was offered a job on October 25. She travelled there with the men and her four-year-old daughter. The men then detained the pair at Malak’s residence in Kashmore and gang-raped the woman.

They then released her but kept her daughter, telling her to bring the woman who was with her during their meeting at the hospital in exchange for the child. They threatened to murder her daughter if the woman did not comply.

The woman approached the police in Kashmore, who conducted a raid at Malak’s residence. They saw three men, two of whom they identified on the spot as Muhammad Rafique Malak and Khairullah Bugti. They did not know the third man.

An assistant sub-inspector in Kashmore, identified as Muhammad Bux, took it upon himself to arrest the rapists. The ASI asked his wife talk to the accused and pretend to be the woman they asked for and then sent his daughter with the victim to lure him, Kashmore SSP Amjad Ali Shaikh told SAMAA Digital over the phone.

“He volunteered his wife and daughter and told me the child [victim] was also like his daughter,” said the police official. “Here the culture is very conservative because it is a tribal belt.”

SSP Shaikh said that he has a force of at least 3,000 people but not a single female constable because “people here don’t like it”.

All three fled when they saw the police and jumped over a wall but Malak landed on a pile of bricks, injuring his legs. The police were able to arrest him but the other two fled. However, the police team has said on record that they will be able to identify the other two on sight.

The police found the child inside and Malak confessed that he had raped her because he was “furious” at her mother. The police confirmed that there were marks of violence on the child that made it apparent that she had been raped. Both the mother and child were shifted to the Taluka Hospital Kashmore.

The case was registered against Malak at the Kashmore police station under sections 376 (rape), 344 (wrongful confinement), 420 (cheating and dishonesty) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code. It has been registered on behalf of the State. Sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act have now also been included.