17-year-old confesses to rape, murder of child

FAISALABAD: A 17-year-old youth raped a four-year-old boy and killed him on Thursday. Police officials arrested the accused after residents of the area located his whereabouts.

According to Risalay Wala resident Sial, his four-year-old son Asim had been missing since Thursday morning. “He went out to play like he does every day but he didn’t come back,” Sial said, adding that one of his neighbours mentioned that he had seen a man talking to the boy but had assumed he was a family member. “I immediately called the police and asked the mosque cleric to make an announcement,” he said.

Sial made announcements from the mosques in this regard and asked residents to keep a look out for his son and contact him but no one knew of the child’s whereabouts. Later in the evening, he registered a complaint with the police. Police officials reached the area and interrogated several people and took Karamat into custody over suspicion. Several residents identified that they had seen Karamat speaking to the boy earlier in the day. After an interrogation, Karamat admitted to raping and later killing the boy. He allegedly told police officials that he killed the boy after he began to weep loudly for help. He also helped the police recover the body from a nearby sugarcane field. Karamat confessed to killing Asim because the child began to draw attention and he feared that he would be caught. Police officials have taken Karamat into custody and registered a case against him.Asim’s body has been returned to his parents for burial after an autopsy report .



All names in this story have been changed to protect identity.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2011.