Pakistan police in new rape case

A police officer has been arrested in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi in the second case in a week in which police have been accused of rape.

Three other officers have gone missing after a woman said that four officers gang-raped her in her own home.

A medical report on the woman is due to be released soon.

Last week the head of police in the city of Faisalabad was suspended after he was accused of ordering that a woman be raped.

'Bribe'

Rawalpindi's District Police Officer Saud Aziz told the BBC that three constables had absconded after a woman said that four police personnel raped her in her house on Sunday.

He said that a sub-inspector had been arrested in connection with the case.

The woman alleges that police officials arrested her husband and demanded a bribe of 100,000 rupees ($1,674).

She said she paid the police 30,000 rupees after which her husband was released but the officials continued demanding the remaining amount.

She accuses the four officers of then barging into her house on Sunday and raping her after locking her husband and uncle in another room in the house.

Removed

The case comes after Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry ordered separate inquiries into the alleged rape of a woman in Faisalabad.

Mukhtar Mai - at the centre of Pakistan's most high profile rape case

Faisalabad police chief Khalid Abdullah was removed from his post after the allegations emerged.

Mr Abdullah has denied any wrongdoing, accusing the woman of lying.

The 23-year-old woman said she was kept in illegal confinement for 15 days and raped by a police officer as "punishment" for seeking to publicise the detention of her husband.

The officer accused of the crime was suspended on Tuesday.

The woman said she was abducted, blindfolded and handcuffed and driven to a house where she was kept for 15 days and raped by a police officer.

Pakistan has witnessed a number of high-profile rape cases in recent months.

The most highly publicised is the case of Mukhtar Mai, 33, who was raped in Punjab province in 2002, allegedly on the order of a village council.

Since then she has become an icon in the campaign for women's justice in conservative Pakistan.

Last week, tribal council members in Karachi were accused of preventing a rape case being reported to police.

The council instead allegedly imposed a fine on the accused.