JHELUM, Punjab: Police arrested on Thursday two suspects for the gang rape of a 17-year-old deaf girl in the remits of the Domeli police station in Jhelum.

The rapes occurred while the girl was living with her step-mother along with her 18-year-old brother. Both are deaf and cannot speak. Their father had remarried after the death of their mother but died soon after. They had five children, of which four have special needs including the two children who were living with their stepmother.

Of the two people arrested for the rape, one is the nephew of the stepmother while the other one is the girl’s cousin.

The rapes were discovered by the girl’s maternal aunt, when she took her to a doctor after finding her unwell in July, according to the first information report. The ultrasounds revealed that she was in the advanced stages of a pregnancy.

It added that the girl’s stepmother treated the two orphans harshly, which they believe was one of the reasons the abuse continued unabated for so long.

Following the shocking discovery, the girl used sign language to identity her stepmother’s nephew, 27-year-old Muhammad Usman, and her cousin Usman Ahmed. Teaches from special needs school were also summoned to interpret her signs, which suggest that the abuse had been taking place for months.

Both suspects had fled the area after the discovery of the crime but are in custody now.

During that time, the teenaged survivor gave birth to a healthy child.

The incident comes a day after a man was arrested for the rape and murder of his 12-year-old niece. On the same day, a boy was raped and burnt to death in Punjab’s Pattoki.

At least 3,852 children – 2,068 girls and 1,784 boys – were sexually abused across Pakistan in 2021, revealed Sahil, an NGO working against child abuse, in a report titled ‘Cruel Number’. According to the data shared by the organisation, at least 10 children were abused every day through 2021.