The police have recovered a missing woman from Toba Tek Singh some sixteen years after her alleged abduction from Islamabad.
According to police sources in Toba Tek Singh, Asia Bibi, 33, was reportedly abducted within the jurisdiction of Shahzad police station, Islamabad on October 18, 2008.
Bashir Ahmed, Station House Officer (SHO) Aroti Police Station, told the media that a video clip circulated widely on social media which featured a woman recounting her abduction and current presence in Sindhilianwala, Toba Tek Singh.
“The clip showed a woman alleging abduction and subsequent assault, appealing to authorities for assistance. Upon investigation, we noted someone interviewing her with occasional audibility of her voice,” the SHO stated.
He elaborated that they swiftly tracked down the YouTuber responsible for the video, leading to the woman’s location.
The SHO added, she resided in a household with an eighty-year-old man, Allah Yar who was sick, claiming she was forced into marrying him.
According to the FIR, Naseem Akhtar, the mother of Asia Bibi, filed a report on October 18, 2008, at the Police Station Shahzad Town, stating that her daughter Asia Bibi had gone missing and was not found.
The FIR was lodged on March 27, 2009, following Naseem Akhtar’s another application to register an FIR against the accused persons she named, under section 365-B of the Pakistan Penal Code.
As per Police reports, Asia Bibi hailed from Chakothi, Azad Kashmir and was abducted from Bani Faqiran village within Shahzad Town Police Station’s jurisdiction in Islamabad. She with her family had settled there in an earthquake-affected camp after migrating due to the 2005 earthquake seventeen years ago.
She in her statement told the police that she was abducted by a person named Ghulam Mustafa, who took her to Toba Tek Singh, Punjab where he kept her in his house for two years. Subsequently, she was sold to an elderly man, Allah Yar, a resident of Toba Tek Singh with whom she had a marriage contract where she stayed until a video of her narrating her ordeal went viral.
Asia further stated that upon learning that someone from her area had married a girl from Muzaffarabad and relocated to Toba Tek Singh, she reached out to them for assistance. She added, with their help she uploaded a video message on social media, which led the police to trace her and facilitate her recovery.
Following legal procedures, the police transported the victim to Islamabad after recording her statement in the court of a competent judicial magistrate.