Pakistani police have delayed registering complaints by Catholic women who gang raped by three Muslims in front of their 3-year-old daughter, and are pressured her to withdraw the lawsuit, she said.
Sheeza Intikhab, a 20-year-old Catholic from Chak No. 42 village in Nankana Sahib district of Punjab, was identified only as Muhammad Mohsin and the man, as Muhammad Mohsin, Zahid Gujar, as Alsaran while her husband remained at work, she said.
“What happened to me left my child hurting,” Inticub said. “She got sick after the incident and she’s fine now, but when she’s not looking at me, she gets very anxious and starts crying. I’m a poor and weak Christian, but I deserve justice regardless of my social status.
Intikhab has given her permission to make her name public to improve her chances of achieving justice. Her husband was employed by landlord Maliknadeem in May to take care of the cattle farm. Nadeem’s relative Mohshin sent her husband to another district for work on the day of the attack, she said.
“Around 9pm, Mohsin and his two accomplices surged into my room and raped me in front of the child, and I was busy caring for my daughter,” Intichub told Christian Daily International Morning Star News. “I cried, cried out for help, but no one could save me from them.”
The attacker later threatened to kill her and her family if she told anyone about the attack, she said.
“When my husband got home late that night, I told him what had happened to me in his absence,” she said. “I told him that a man warned me that if we went to the police we would kill all of us, but my husband told us we had to register a lawsuit.”
The hopes for justice of the poor couple were shattered when they went to the police with Intichub’s mother that night.
“Instead of registering our first information report (FIR), which is in charge of the police department, we were shocked when Associate Inspector Kamran Shahzad began abusering us and refused to accept the application,” she said. “We appealed to him for justice, but he ordered the female constable to drive us out of the police station. When I protested this attitude, a constable named Ilam slapped me multiple times and kicked us out of the building.”
The next day, she and her husband were at their parents’ house when Shazad arrived and forced them to go to the police station with her daughter.
“When we arrived at the station, Shazad told me to put my hands on my daughter’s head and vowed that my allegations against the three Muslims were true,” she said. “After I did what he said, Shazad sent me to the hospital with a female constable for a Medico-legal test, but the staff there sent us back and told me there was no doctor to carry out my test.”
Police told them to go home and wait for a call, she said. Nine days later, they hadn’t heard from the police yet, she added.
On June 21, Intikhab returned to the police station with her husband and mother to follow up on the complaints. While they waited, she said, Shahzad left his office and asked why they came again.
“When we said we wanted to register an FIR, his attitude was once again very rude and he started cursing us,” she said. “When my husband told him he wouldn’t leave until a complaint was registered, Shazad eventually became generous and instructed the mission officer to accept our application.”
Police then formed an assault team to arrest Mohsin, adding that one day on June 22, the FIR was registered, adding that two other suspects were arrested on the same day.
“After my arrest, the police took me to the hospital for a medical check-up, but when we went there, a police officer named Sikandar began to pressure me to drop the lawsuit,” she said. “He said, “Take Pakistan’s Rs 150,000 ($530 USD) and forget that this incident happened.”
All three suspects are reportedly being detained by the police, but their arrests have not been officially recorded in previous official registers, said Safdar Chaudhry, chairman of Pakistan’s Raah-e-Nijaat ministry and a member of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission (HRCP). Chaudhry’s group intervened when a local pastor informed him of a family’s light letter.
“The Sheeza case amplifies barriers to access to justice in vulnerable and marginalized communities, particularly those in poor Christian families,” Chaudhry told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
Police resistance to the suspect’s prosecution established the family’s claim that the attackers had affected officers with money and political contact, he said.
“There is no doubt that the accused are very influential because the police are not acting harshly against them,” Chaudhry said. “We have worked with local Christian lawyers on behalf of the victim’s family to pursue the matter in court. It is embarrassing that local police were making efforts to protect the accused, instead of protecting the victim.”
As justice remains far away, she and her husband decided to take the matter to court despite threats and pressure to withdraw the complaints.
With a Muslim population of over 96%, Pakistan ranked 8th on the 2025 World Watchlist, where it is the hardest place to become a Christian.
