New Delhi: A former Pakistani minister elected last week to the legislative assembly of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) is under investigation in Britain over allegations that he raped and trafficked girls in Manchester in the 1990s, according to The Guardian.
Rukhsar Ahmed, 62, a member of Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), was arrested by Greater Manchester Police at Manchester airport in July 2024, on suspicion of rape and child trafficking linked to alleged grooming gang activity in the city’s Rusholme area during the early 1990s.
Police questioned Ahmed over allegations made by at least two women who claim they were raped and trafficked while they were children in local care homes. The investigation forms part of a broader inquiry into child sexual abuse involving several victims.
Ahmed, who previously served as a minister in successive governments in PoK between 2006 and 2021, was subsequently released on bail. According to The Guardian report, he was due to answer bail at a Manchester police station last month but did not appear, citing ill health that prevented him from travelling from Pakistan.
Around the same time, photographs posted on social media showed Ahmed actively campaigning in Mirpur ahead of last week’s election, in which he regained his seat in the PoK assembly.
The Guardian also reported that the Greater Manchester Police sought stricter bail conditions that would have prevented Ahmed from leaving Britain after his arrest. A judge, however, declined to impose the travel restrictions.
Ahmed is expected to answer bail within the coming six weeks. If he fails to do so, British authorities could seek a warrant for his arrest or pursue extradition proceedings, a move that could complicate diplomatic relations between Britain and Pakistan.
Ahmed spent years living in Manchester and owned the Gujjar Palace restaurant near the city’s Curry Mile, a landmark in one of Britain’s largest South Asian communities. Although the restaurant has long since closed, friends and associates quoted in the report described him as a well-known figure who regularly returned to Manchester, where supporters viewed him as an influential advocate for the Kashmiri diaspora.
The case comes amid renewed scrutiny of Britain’s long-running investigations into organised child sexual exploitation, particularly historic grooming gang cases in northern England.
It also follows a diplomatic dispute between London and Islamabad after Pakistan declined Britain’s request to accept the deportation of Shabir Ahmed, a convicted Rochdale grooming gang leader who was released from prison after serving 14 years of a 22-year sentence for multiple child rape offences.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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