Gruesome act: Minor girl raped, murdered in capital’s slum

Police arrest two men accused of assaulting, killing victim

ISLAMABAD: A 12-year-old girl was allegedly raped and killed in a slum located near Sector F-11 of the capital on Wednesday, leading to protests by the victim’s family and community.

On Thursday, police claimed to have arrested two men who were accused of committing the crime.

Officials said that the body of the victim was found in a shanty in the Maira Jaffar area located adjacent to Sector F-11 on Wednesday evening.

The victim’s family claimed she had been sexually assaulted before being killed.

 The police shifted the body to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) where doctors reportedly confirmed that the girl had been sexually assaulted.

“A complete medical report is still awaited. However, doctors, during their initial medical examination, had confirmed that there had been an assault,” a police officer said.

Following the incident, the victim’s family and relatives blocked the Golra road in protest on Wednesday night. They also staged a protest demonstration in Sector F-11 Markaz on Thursday.

Police, on the other hand, said they have arrested both the men accused of assaulting and killing the minor.

The victim’s family hails from the Chiniot district and lived in tents and shanties in a slum near Sector F-11.

An officer said the suspects also belonged to the same community as the victim.

Last year, the police had found the body of a three-and-a-half-year-old girl in her family’s backyard.

The girl had gone missing from her home on April 7, 2017. The police had later registered a kidnapping case after her father submitted a formal complaint. However, her body was found dumped two days later in the backyard of her family’s home.

An initial medical examination of the body suggested that the child had been sexually assaulted before being strangled to death.

The investigation was handed over to the capital police’s homicide investigation unit but the investigators were unable to resolve the case even after eight months.

An officer privy to the investigation said DNA samples from around two dozen suspects were sent to the National Forensic Science Agency in Islamabad in August 2017, but they had not received the reports until December.



In January this year, the Islamabad Police had set up a women and child protection centre at women police station to check against incidents of violence against them. Islamabad’s top cop Inspector General Dr Sultan Azam Temuri had said that various measures were being taken for fairness and transparent attitude towards women and children and that their rights will be ensured by the police.

He said that women police station in Islamabad would be up-graded while Human Rights and Gender Watch Committee would be made more effective to handle similar cases. He said that this committee would monitor such cases and give recommendations to end them. Moreover, a mobile van has been provided to the centre to reduce their response time to just five minutes. 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 9^th, 2018.