A 17-year-old girl, who had allegedly been raped a year earlier, committed suicide in Sindh's Tharparkar district after she was reportedly blackmailed by the suspects whom her family had accused of sexually assaulting her.
The teenager, who belonged to a Hindu family, took her own life within the early hours of Wednesday by jumping into a deep open well in village Dalan-Jo-Tarr near Chelhar town.
Villagers retrieved the body and shifted it to Mithi Civil Hospital for autopsy .
"The girl was raped by three men in mid-July in 2019 and therefore the accused within the case are on bail," the victim's father and other relatives told reporters in Mithi.
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They alleged that the girl committed suicide after she was blackmailed and harassed by the influential suspects who had raped her.
Chelhar police had registered a primary information report (FIR) no. 26/2019, a replica of which is out there with Dawn.com, against three men on rape charges.
The suspects had not only taken turns to rape the girl but allegedly also filmed the ordeal after taking her to a house.
According to then-Tharparkar senior superintendent of police (SSP) Abdullah Ahmedyar, initial medical reports had confirmed that the girl had been sexually assaulted.
The trial of the case was delayed thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. October 15 has now been fixed because the date when evidence within the case are going to be submitted, the lawyer of the victim's family, Advocate Mohan Mathrani, told Dawn.com.
No fresh case was registered against the accused after the girl's death (until the filing of this report), however, one among the three suspects was arrested again by Chelhar police on the orders of Tharparkar SSP Hassan Sardar Niazi.
Chelhar police station Office Mushtaq Malik said police would register a replacement case if the family lodges a complaint of blackmail or harassment.
People from different walks of life including rights activists Samtra Manjani, Bheem Raj et al. strongly condemned the incident and demanded stern action against those that forced the teenager to require the acute step.
People of the Meghwar community, also as workers of varied parties, have warned they're going to stage protests in Thar and other areas against such rising incidents of crimes against women.
The incident comes amid renewed debate and outrage over sexual crimes against women within the country, which was sparked by the gang-rape of a lady on the Lahore-Sialkot motorway ahead of her children after she was left stranded by a fault in her car.
Amidst countrywide anger, Prime Minister Imran Khan said rapists should be handed down the foremost severe punishments to curb rising sexual violence, like either hanging them publicly or chemically castrating them.
A Sindh Police study had revealed earlier this year that as many as 1,287 people, including 586 females, committed suicide across the province over the last five years.
The research was administered within the wake of growing incidents of suicide, particularly in lower Sindh, the provincial captain had told Dawn, saying its purpose was partly to sensitise the police and identify triggering factors behind suicides.
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