Rape victim decries police inaction

WEWAK police have been urged to speed up investigations into an incident last month in which a medical officer and his wife were kidnapped and the wife raped at gunpoint by eight men.
The kidnap, rape and attempted murder occurred on Aug 17 was reported to police the next day but three weeks on, there had been no progress on police investigations, the medical officer (named) said.
He said he and his wife, who was seven months pregnant, were held up near Wom village at around 9pm as they were driving to Wewak and taken to a logging road near Hawain, on the west coast, where they were inhumanely treated by their kidnappers.
He said the assailants forced them to strip naked and took his wife a few metres away from him and sexually assaulted her.
The man was ordered to lie face down on the muddy road and made to eat the mud while they urinated into a container and pushed it into his mouth.
He said the suspects, who were armed with guns threatened to shoot him twice, hit him three times on the head making him unconscious and attempted once to throw him into a pool of water to let him drown when he tried to stop them from molesting his wife.
After committing the offence the suspects drove away in the couple’s vehicle, leaving them tied, in the bush where no one was there to help.
The wife said a person among the assailants had left behind a small grass-knife which they used to free themselves and walked naked to the main highway at Hawain to seek help.
The father of the medical officer, who is a prominent person in Wewak, condemned the attack on his son and daughter-in-law and called on police to speed up investigations so that those responsible were brought to justice.
An official letter of complaint against CID police personnel in Wewak had also been sent by the victim to the Divisional Commander, Assistant Commissioner Giossi Labi in Lae.
East Sepik police commander Insp Charles Parinjo could not been reached for comments at he was in Port Moresby on official duties.