Police in Lahore on Thursday registered a case against five suspects on charges of kidnapping for ransom and sexually assaulting two foreign women.
According to DIG Faisal Kamran, the Police Emergency Helpline 15 received a call from Spain by the father of one of the women. Reporting the incident, he said the alleged victims were nationals of the Netherlands and Venezuela and had come to Pakistan to visit “friends.”
He said police took action on the complaint, dispatching a team of senior officials to locate the women. They recovered the women within hours, arrested four suspects and lodged an FIR under Sections 365A (kidnapping) and 375A (rape) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). The suspects were tracked and apprehended using the Punjab Safe City Authority’s cameras on directions of Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, he added. One of the suspects, reportedly a security guard, escaped from the scene and is currently being traced by police.
According to the FIR, the women traveled to Pakistan on the invitation of an acquaintance they had met in Singapore in October 2025, reportedly a relative of a senior politician. Shortly ahead of their scheduled departure date, on June 29, the acquaintance and four accomplices abducted the women, demanding $1.5 million for their release. The complaint also contains allegations of repeated sexual assault, threats with weapons, physical abuse and extortion.
The recovered foreign women were later produced before a judicial magistrate in the presence of their counsel at the Cantonment Courts to record their statements under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The police said Dutch Embassy officials were taken into confidence and updated on the criminal proceedings, as well as the recovery of the victims.
The DIG told media travel documents were completed and the women would leave Pakistan at the earliest.