LAHORE: A judicial magistrate on Saturday granted post-arrest bail to a man accused of assaulting a woman riding a scooty on Mozang Ring Road.
Police had arrested the suspect after CCTV footage of the incident, which took place on Thursday, sparked widespread public outrage on social media. The man was tracked down with the help of data from dozens of Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA) cameras and jailed after being nominated in a criminal case.
On Saturday, Mozang police presented the suspect before the court and requested that he be sent to jail on judicial remand as his physical remand was not required.
However, the magistrate, under his powers, ordered the suspect’s release on bail against a surety bond of Rs100,000, if he was not required in any other criminal case.
Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif took to X to express her displeasure at the suspect receiving bail, posting multiple screenshots of TV news reports about the case and writing “sad” in all caps.
In a post two hours earlier, Maryam said she had spoken to the girl and told her “she should slap the man as many times as he had slapped her”.
“But she said that, for her, it was enough that the government had made her feel protected, cared for, and assured that justice was on her side,” she said.
The footage showed that a man overtook the female scooty rider on the busy road, placed his bike in front of her two-wheeler, and allegedly subjected her to brutal torture in the presence of several passersby. None of the onlookers seemingly tried to intervene and rescue the woman as the suspect pulled her hair and slapped her repeatedly.
As per initial police reports, the woman suffered facial injuries, including a nasal bone fracture, during the attack.
A police official said the attacker also threw the victim’s bag on the ground that contained a laptop valued at around Rs90,000, resulting in severe damage. The suspect later fled the scene in the presence of several onlookers, he added.
In April this year, CM Maryam ordered Lahore police to arrest a suspect who allegedly snatched a phone from a girl riding a scooty in Nawab Town and injured her when she put up resistance.
A video clip showed the suspect dragging her on the road, fleeing the scene with her mobile phone.
The girl, 17, suffered multiple bruises and injuries to her legs and arms. She was riding the scooty outside her home when the unidentified man snatched her phone.