E/CN.4/1993/26 page 79 352. It was also reported that female prisoners held for political reasons are frequently raped in police custody. To register a case of rape the victim has to have a medical examination performed within a very short time after the incident to substantiate her charges; to be accepted in court the medical examination must be carried out by police medical staff. In these circumstances custodial rape is rarely brought to trial as the victims are invariably too fearful to approach the police for the required medical check-up. 353. The following individual cases were brought to the attention of the Government: (a) Essa Baloch, tried by a special court for the suppression of Terrorist Activities in Karachi for allegedly participating in a bomb attack, stated in court that he had been hung upside down and whipped. His wife, Khurshid Begum, reported that when she saw her husband during a hearing on 13 November 1991 she saw that his hands were bleeding as the skin had been scraped off. After attending the court hearing of her husband, some police officers in civilian clothing forcibly took her to a police van to an unknown place, beat her up and raped her; (b) Rajesh Mittal, an Indian diplomat, was reportedly arrested on 24 May 1992 by members of the military intelligence service, Inter Services Intelligence, in Islamabad. He was held in detention for several hours during which he was blindfolded, beaten and given electric shocks; (c) Two journalists, Mohammad Ishaq Tunio of the English daily The Nation and Shafi Bejoro of the Sindhi daily Aftab, were reportedly detained on 28 April 1992 by police officers and armed officials of the ruling alliance at that time as they were covering a by-election in Sanghar district in Sindh province. They were reportedly kicked and beaten with rifle butts for several hours; (d) Naseeruddin was arrested, apparently in a case of mistaken identity, by the Special Investigation Cell on 24 October 1991 in Karachi instead of Naseer Baloch, a political activist wanted in connection with the murder of a judge. After three hours in police custody his body was reportedly taken to the Civil Hospital, Karachi. Police claimed that Naseeruddin had died in hospital of a heart attack; however, the police surgeon reportedly confirmed that the death occurred as a result of torture; (e) Mohammad Yusuf Jakhrani, a member of the opposition, was arrested in Kandhkot on suspicion of harbouring bandits and died on 12 June in a military hospital, allegedly after having been interrogated under torture by the army. 354. Reports were also received of the arrest and ill-treatment of family members and associates of political opponents. Thus, Zulfikar Baloch was arrested by police on 4 October 1991 together with his father, Essa Baloch,