Lahore police have yet to arrest the culprit who harassed and forcibly kissed a girl near Lahore’s Greater Iqbal Park on Independence Day, Geo News reported Saturday.
A case, however, has been registered at the Lari Adda police station on the station house officer’s (SHO) complaint, after police were shown a video of the incident which went viral on social media.
According to the FIR, the incident took place on Circular Road, near gate no 1 of Greater Iqbal Park, towards Chand Chowk.
The FIR estimates 10-12 “morally unrestrained” men on board motorcycles to have harassed two women sitting on board a Qingqi rickshaw, with a child seated in between them.
The video shows the motorcyclists hounding the rickshaw, catcalling and leering at the women, besides making obscene gestures, stated the FIR.
“One of the men, wearing a white shirt and blue jeans, jumped onto the rickshaw to forcibly kiss one of the women on her cheek and also tried to tear her clothes off,” it noted.
The other men, meanwhile, were constantly “hooting, catcalling, and leering at the women and making obscene gestures”.
The video also shows one of the women taking her slipper off and threatening to hit a motorcyclist with it. The woman who was harassed, at one point in time, gets extremely upset and tries to leave the rickshaw in despair but is stopped from doing so by her companion.
The case has been registered under Sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 511 (punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or for ashorter term), 294 (obscene acts and songs), 509 (ii) (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 147 (punishment for rioting), and 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
