Two women were allegedly gang-raped at gunpoint on Tuesday night in Lahore, once known as Pakistan’s cultural capital but now notorious for being the most unsafe city for women.

The women were staying in a rented accommodation in the city’s high-profile Defense Area, where three suspected robbers barged into on Tuesday. According to police, two of them raped the victims, while another stood on guard. 

Police said two robbers managed to flee while another, Abid Asif, was arrested. 

Lahore, capital of Punjab province, has become the most unsafe city for women in the country, with the city recording the maximum cases of rape, assault, and honors killings last year.

In August this year, an incident where 400 men were seen assaulting a woman in Lahore rocked the country. 

Last year, a French woman of Pakistan origin was sexually assaulted in front of her children after dragging her out of her car, which had broken down during night travel on the Sialkot-Lahore Motorway after it ran out of fuel.

The fourth Punjab Gender Parity Report 2019 and 2020 revealed that women in Punjab province faced 8,797 cases of sexual assault, harassment, rape, kidnapping, and domestic violence in 2020 and 8,767 in 2019. Rape has topped the list of reported crimes against women with 4,732 cases being registered in 2020, according to the report.(SAM)