Multan: The alleged gang-rape of a woman on a moving train has sparked anger in Pakistan.
Three men — one of them a ticket checker — have been accused of raping the woman, a 25-year-old mother of two, as she traveled from the city of Karachi to Multan in Pakistan’s Punjab province last week, according to Pakistan’s Railway Ministry.
It added the attack took place after the men asked her to move to a carriage with air conditioning, CNN reported.
The three men have been arrested on suspicion of rape, according to a police report.
Salman Sufi, the head of the Prime Minister’s Strategic Reforms Implementation Unit, told CNN on Thursday that the government had ordered railway operators to improve the safety of women on trains, with measures including CCTV cameras in common areas, emergency buttons in cabins, and patrols by women police officers.
The incident has sparked anger in the democracy of 220 million, which has a poor track record in protecting women’s rights and where brutal acts of gender-based violence and sexual assault frequently make the headlines.
Fouzia Saeed, a women’s rights activist in Pakistan, called on the police to “make the environment safer” for women, while Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper on Wednesday expressed outrage at what it called “a ghastly crime.”
“Another horrific incident of sexual violence has come to light, underscoring how a cavalier approach to security arrangements can embolden criminally inclined men to indulge their worst instincts,” Dawn said in an editorial.
According to Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission, more than 5,200 women reported being raped in the country in 2021, but experts believe the actual number to be much higher as many victims are too afraid to come forward due to social stigma and victim blaming in the patriarchal society, CNN reported.
(IANS)
