ABBOTTABAD: The family of the child who was raped here by his religious seminary teacher, Qari Shamsuddin, has called for constituting a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) for a transparent probe into the incident besides shifting of the case from Mansehra to any other place.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, Muhammad Iqbal, the raped child’s uncle and other family members rejected the formation of a committee of ulema, emphasising that it was formed to weaken the case and protect the accused teacher who raped and beat the 10-year-old child at least one hundred times.

They added that ulema were trying to manipulate the case and continuously blaming them for taking directions from NGOs against madaris in an attempt to cover up the inner workings of religious seminaries.

Human rights activist Advocate Shabnam Nawaz while speaking on the occasion said that the victim child was unable to eat, speak and walk despite the passage of 10 days of the incident.

She said that the child was brutally tortured and sexually abused and the same was confirmed by doctors in the medical reports and opined that while madaris play an important role in the dissemination of Islamic education, unfortunately, some men misuse it as a place to fulfil other plans and their friends were now diverting attention from the case by giving a false impression that madaris were being defamed in the name of such cases, completely denying that such a problem exists.

Shabnam also revealed that the DNA of both the victim and accused were not being tested to ascertain the truth, alledging that this was being done on purpose.

The advocate disclosed that a team of lawyers from Manshera Bar Club would provide free legal assistance to the victim child whereas no lawyer from the bar would plead the offender’s case.

Earlier on Sunday, Police had arrested Qari Shamsuddin and four of his aides who were privy to his deeds after the child’s uncle Ali Gohar lodged a first information report (FIR) with Pulrah police while giving evidence in the form of a medical report that confirmed that he had been raped by the qari who owns the madrassa.

The medical report also revealed that besides being raped multiple times, the child had bruises on his elbows and knees, his eyes were swollen and bleeding and he was in trauma.

The madrassah, which was unregistered, has now been sealed and the remaining 119 students have been sent home.