By Zabihullah Ihsas & Sharafuddin Stanikzai
Police have detained and charged four men with gang rape of two girls in northern Balkh and western Herat provinces, officials said on Saturday, adding a hunt for another two rapists on the loose was underway.
The detainees included a doctor, who allegedly took his 16-year-old patient on excursion from the Civil Hospital in Mazar-i-Sharif to the Shadyan desert, where he and his two friends gang rapped the girl, said crime branch chief Salahuddin Sultani.
He said police had arrested the doctor, but his two friends remained at large and efforts were being made to hunt them down.
The victim girl has been taken to a shelter house after her treatment, the civil hospital director, Dr. Noor Mohammad Faiz, said
Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission head for northern zone, Syed Mohammad Sami, asked police to properly investigate the case.
Three men took the girl to the Shadyan desert from the Mazar-i-Sharif shrine and raped her there, women's affairs department head at the AIHRC in Balkh, Fawzia Nawabi, said. She said area people had informed the police who took the girl to a hospital.
Another girl was kidnapped and gang rapped by three men in Ghoryan district of Herat, deputy police spokesman, Syed Ahmad Mohammadi, said. Police had arrested the three and charged them with gang rape, he said.
Herat police chief Brig. Gen. Rahmatullah Safi said the girl was kidnapped on Thursday from Zinda Jan district and was gang raped during her abduction.