Robbers allegedly gang-raped a woman in front of her husband and three-year-old child in Pakistan's Hafizabad district on Thursday, once again raising the question of women's safety in the country.

According to reports, the family was going to Chiniot by motorcycle when it was stopped by three robbers near Sukheke.

The robbers allegedly took the woman to a nearby field and gang-raped her.

Instead of helping the victim family, the police officials of the Hafizabad and Nankana Sahib districts reportedly clashed over the ‘dispute of jurisdiction’, blatantly violating the Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs) which were issued in the wake of the Lahore-Sialkot motorway gang-rape incident [2020] to respond to the sexual assault attacks on women, reported Dawn News.

The rape survivor was later shifted to a hospital.

An official told the Pakistani newspaper that the family was resident of Chiniot district.

He said the woman was going back to her home along with her husband and three-year-old daughter after meeting her maternal uncle late on Wednesday.

He said they were intercepted by three robbers at around 11:30pm.

The gangsters fled the scene after the incident.

Hafizabad DPO Faisal Gulzar told Dawn that though the incident took place in Nankana Sahib district, he had ordered to register the FIR in his district’s police station.

“We arrested one of the three criminals who looted the family and raped the woman”, he said adding that during interrogation the arrested suspect told the police that his accomplices fled towards Rawalpindi.