A 20-year-old Azerbaijani woman who came to Lahore for business has allegedly been gang-raped by three men after being taken to an apartment in the city.
What began as a dinner outing reportedly ended with the woman being intoxicated, sexually assaulted and later abandoned on the roadside. The case has since triggered a police investigation, with one key suspect now arrested and two others identified as police continue efforts to trace them. The woman has also recorded her statement before a judicial magistrate.
Yet apart from all the particulars of one extremely disturbing case, this case has posed some larger questions concerning the safety of women in Pakistan once again, as well as foreign tourists, and what this kind of case may do for the reputation of a country.
Here is everything we know so far.
What allegedly happened to the Azerbaijani woman?
As per the FIR lodged at Defence C police station, the 20-year-old woman was in Pakistan for about 15 to 20 days for business purposes and was living in the Raiwind locality.
On September 25, two women allegedly approached her and invited her to a cafe in Lahore where three men were already present. As per the complainant’s report, they took her out for a drive. However, according to the complainant, they drove her to an apartment in a private housing society in the vicinity of Raiwind.
According to the FIR, the men consumed alcohol at the apartment, and the girl had been served alcohol mixed with a drug. She claimed that she became unconscious and then raped by all three men.
She further alleged that they kept her at the same place till the next day when they took her outside and abandoned her at Ghazi Interchange. Her mobile phone and other belongings were also allegedly stolen from her. Upon being abandoned there, she approached someone passing by and reported to the police control room. Police subsequently registered a case and began investigating the allegations.
The latest reports say one of the three suspects has now been arrested, while the other two have been identified and police teams are conducting raids to locate them. Authorities also requested that the suspects’ names be placed on the Provisional National Identification List after police said they had left Lahore following the alleged assault. One of the suspects was reportedly traced to Sialkot.
This is not the first recent case involving foreign women in Lahore
Probably the most disturbing aspect of the case is that it is just a matter of months from another sexual violence case involving foreigners in the same police jurisdiction.
In June, two foreign women, apparently Dutch and Venezuelan nationals, were abducted and raped in the Defence C police station locality. The FIR filed in the case mentioned that five men kidnapped the women, demanded ransom, and raped them while they were being held hostage.
It makes the latest case very hard to ignore as a one-off news item.
According to the data provided by the police, cited in the State of Human Rights in 2024 report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, there were 4,175 cases of rape and 733 cases of gang rape in Pakistan in 2024. The police data cited in the same report noted 3,533 victims of rape and/or sexual assault and 639 victims of gang rape in Punjab in 2024.
Another dataset, compiled by the Sustainable Social Development Organization through Right to Information requests, recorded 5,339 rape cases in Pakistan in 2024, including 4,641 in Punjab. The difference between the datasets is important: it shows that statistics on gender-based violence can vary depending on the source, definitions and collection methods.
Punjab’s own Gender Parity Report also paints a disturbing picture. According to Punjab Police data cited in the report, the province recorded 5,599 reported cases of sexual violence in 2024, including 4,567 rape cases, 923 gang rape cases and 109 incest cases.
Lahore recorded the highest district total, with 669 reported cases of sexual violence in 2024.
That works out to roughly one reported sexual violence case every 94 minutes in Punjab based on the 5,599 figure.
And these are reported cases.
A country earns trust not only through the welcome it gives its visitors, but through the way it responds when a visitor becomes a victim. The Azerbaijani woman’s case now sits at that intersection of crime, justice, women’s safety and Pakistan’s international image.
This is a developing story.
Sources: The Express Tribune, and Nukta.