Families of raped girls threaten suicide outside parliament

ISLAMABAD: The parents of the two minor girls who were gang raped have threatened on Wednesday to commit suicide in front of Parliament House if the anti-terrorism court does not put the rapists on trial.

The Christian parents of two-and-a-half-year old Neha and six-year-old Sherry told a news conference on Wednesday that they regretted the government’s inaction against the rapists. Both families have left their homes in Gujranwala and Lahore because of fears of threats by influential people backing the rapists.

Neha was raped in Rahwali in Gujranwala and Sherry in a slum area of Saiden Shah in Lahore. Neha’s father, Munir Masih, said his daughter ‘s urinary tract had been badly affected. She was operated upon in a hospital and doctors treating her with a sigmoid loop colostomy had told her family that she had to undergo four or five operations.

Sherry’s mother, Perveen, accused the police and District Nazim Saiden Shah of threatening her and her family and trying to bribe them to withdraw their complaint. She warned that she would commit suicide in front of President Pervez Musharraf’s motorcade if justice were not done. The chairman of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA), Shahbaz Bhatti, who was also present at the conference, termed the case a social issue, adding that poor Muslim girls were also being raped which was highly unjust.

He demanded a crackdown on crimes against poor women. He regretted that the Prime Minister ‘s Adviser Nilofar Bakhtiar had done nothing to provide them justice. online

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