Lahore: Lahore has recently witnessed an increase of up to 300 per cent in the registration of sexual assault cases.
Local media, citing police records, reported that the increase in registration of such cases came after the sexual assault case that had occurred in Lahore’s Greater Iqbal Park, where 400 suspects had allegedly assaulted a woman.
In the last one-and-a-half month, 642 cases have been registered, with 323 in August and 319 in September, Geo News reported citing police records.
DIG Investigation Shariq Jamal Khan said: “110 cases were discarded after they turned out to be false,” as he noted that sexual assault cases used to take place earlier as well, but women would refrain from lodging an FIR.
“The registration of cases has increased after the Greater Iqbal incident,” the DIG said.
Last month, a TikToker was captured being “brutally attacked” by hordes of men in Lahore even as Pakistan celebrated its Independence Day and for a while, the incident was among top hashtags on Twitter #minarPakistan and #400 men were among the hashtags being used by outraged netizens who expressed their shock and disgust at the violence against the woman.
The woman filed a complaint with police in which she alleged that a mob of around 400 people attacked her and her friends while she was filming a video near Minar-e-Pakistan on August 14, according to local media reports.
Days after the incident, another video has surfaced apparently from the same day has surfaced of another woman being the subject of an assault.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had stated that sexual crimes are rising in the country due to misuse of mobile phones, according to local media.