Pakistan
Ayesha Akram spoke out after a mob of men groped and assaulted her in a Pakistan park on the country's Independence Day on Saturday.
Syed Zargahm/Getty Images
  • A woman spoke out after she said a mob of men assaulted her in a Pakistan park on Saturday.
  • She told a news station the men "took everything" and that she "was having a hard time breathing."
  • According to Vice, the woman, Ayesha Akram, is a popular TikToker with 115,000 followers.
  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A woman filming a video in a Pakistan park on the country's Independence Day on Saturday said she was groped and assaulted by a mob of around 300 to 400 men.

Several notable Pakistani politicians have spoken out about the incident and an investigation against the perpetrators is underway, according to authorities in Punjab.

As reported by Vice and other outlets, the incident began after Ayesha Akram and her friends went to record people celebrating Pakistan's Independence Day at the Minar-e-Pakistan, a towering monument in Lahore, the capital city of Pakistan's Punjab province. Akram is a TikToker with 115,000 followers, Vice reported, though Insider could not verify the alleged account.

A large group of men began to crowd around Akram to take selfies before they assaulted her, according to Vice, though the outlet didn't specify whether that information came from Punjab authorities or Akram's interviews with other sources.

"They took everything off of me," Akram said during an interview with the local news station Daily Pakistan, which Insider translated from Urdu to English. "The people who were trying to save me were also the people who were stripping me. One would take my clothes off and another would try to cover me."

According to Vice, citing the Pakistani police report, the mob reportedly contained around 300 to 400 men and the assault lasted for around two and a half hours before Akram was rescued.

"I was having a hard time breathing," Akram continued in her Daily Pakistan interview. "A child came and tried to pour some water down my throat. He was saying, 'Are you people crazy, this girl is nearly dead.'"

The Punjab Police referenced the alleged assault in a tweet on Wednesday, saying that Pakistan's National Database and Registration Authority, which manages information about Pakistani citizens, is working to identify the alleged attackers.

According to a tweet from Azhar Mashwani, the Digital Media Focus Person for the Chief Minister Punjab, the police are using CCTV footage and video clips to identify the alleged attackers.

A number of prominent Pakistani politicians condemned the alleged attack online.

Sayed Bukhari, who previously served as Special Assistant to the Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, said on Twitter on Wednesday that Khan "personally spoke to" the Punjab Inspector General and that the government "won't spare a single person involved" in the "gross violations of laws & social norms [sic]."

"The full might of the Govt [sic] will come down upon those involved in the horrendous Lahore incident," wrote Hashim Jawan Bakht, Punjab's Minister of Finance, in a Wednesday tweet that has garnered over 1,300 likes. "Society is judged by its treatment of women and the freedom they have. This is not what Pakistan stands for."

Punjab Police representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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