Pakistani girl dug herself out of grave after being raped and buried alive
A 13-year-old Pakistani girl managed to dig her way out of a shallow grave after being raped and buried alive by her attackers. A court has ordered an investigation into the incident after police allegedly refused to pursue the case.
The teenage girl was on her way to a Koran seminary in the
province of Punjab when she was abducted by two unknown
assailants. The men then took her to a remote location and raped
her until she lost consciousness. Believing her to be dead, the
attackers then buried the 13-year-old in a shallow grave.
When the girl regained consciousness she was forced to dig her
way out of the grave. She was later transferred to a nearby rural
health center.
When the victim’s father, Siddique Mughal, reported the incident
to local police, the case was reportedly ignored, writes the
Times of India. This prompted the intervention of the Lahore high
court chief justice's Complaint Cell, who ordered a district and
sessions judge from the Toba Tek Singh district to probe the
matter.
In Pakistan many child abuse cases are ignored by authorities and
fall by the wayside. A non-profit organization, Sahil, that works
to stamp out child abuse in Pakistan estimates that every day
more than four children are abused in some way in the country.
In addition the group believes that cases of child sexual abuse
covered by the media increased from 668 in 2002 to 2,788 in 2012.
“We still think these statistics are just a fraction of what’s
going on,” Manizeh Bano, the group’s executive director told
the Washington Post.
