MULTAN:
A nine-year-old girl was raped and murdered allegedly by her uncle on Thursday evening.
According to police officials, Jhangra Sharqi resident Ghareeb Nawaz’s daughter Sidra was playing in the street with her brothers and cousins when her uncle Haneef called her inside to get him a glass of water.
“We all heard him call her to come in and fetch him some water but we didn’t think about it twice because he lives here and has practically raised her,” Sidra’s mother Sughran Bibi told police officials.
Locals in the area said that Sidra’s parents and Haneef lived in the same house and Haneef was Ghareeb Nawaz’s younger brother.
“He has two sons of his own as well as a daughter. I can’t imagine how he could do something like this,” Sughran said.
Police officials said that Haneef lured Sidra into a room, where he tied her up and raped her. He then strangled the girl and threw her body in a garbage dump outside the house. “We had no idea what had happened and we began searching for her late in the evening. At first we thought she was playing hide and seek from her cousins but by nightfall we got really scared,” said Ghareeb Nawaz.
“I found the body in the dumpster when a couple of dogs were sniffing around it. I saw an animal bite at the human hand and immediately called the police,” said neighbour Faraz.
Faraz told police officials that he immediately called Ghareeb Nawaz because he recognised his daughter. “They were distraught and we found out that Haneef had escaped,” he said.
Nowsherea Jadeed Police station officials sent the body to the DHQ hospital for a post mortem.
“The post mortem results confirmed that the girl was raped and beaten. She was finally strangled,” said Dr Alvi. “We have reported back to the police and the family has sent us DNA samples of her uncle to confirm if he was the rapist,” he said. Alvi said that the DNA testing would take one more day.
Meanwhile, District Police Officer Babar Bukht Qureshi said that a police team had been constituted to investigate the incident. “Something like this will not go unpunished.
We are searching for the accused and are waiting on the lab tests in this regard,” he said. Sidra’s parents also locked Haneef’s children in a room and beat them to seek the location of their father.
“We are sending his wife and children to a Darul Salam. They do not know where he is but they may not be safe in the house after what happened,” Qureshi said.
“I want him to be caught and punished. If what they say is true I will leave him. I don’t want him anywhere near my children,” said Haneef’s wife Rashida.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2011.
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