10-year-old girl raped, choked to death

The body was found from the rooftop of a three-storey apartment building, tied to the overhead water tank

KARACHI: The body of a 10-year-old girl, K*, was found from the rooftop of a three-storey apartment building in the Railway Colony near Landhi Railway Station in Bin Qasim Town on Thursday. The child was found tied to the overhead water tank on the rooftop. According to the postmortem report, the child had been raped and subsequently strangulated to death with a dupatta.

Malir SSP Irfan Ali Bahadur told the media that the child's family had been searching for her since Thursday evening. After several hours, they found her body, with her limbs tied to the water tank, on the rooftop of their three-storey apartment building, in which they lived in a ground-floor apartment.

The victim's parents fainted at the sight of their child's body. The girl's maternal uncle said that neither did they have any personal enmity with anyone nor had they been involved in any dispute. He added that they didn't know who to suspect of having committed such a heinous crime.



In custody

On Friday, police detained 16 suspects, who are all residents of the same building where the child lived and her body was found. Investigators have acquired samples from all the suspects, which will be sent for DNA analysis.

Protests

The family, accompanied by other residents of the area, held a protest demonstration at the National Highway near Ghagar Phatak, calling for the arrest of the perpetrator. MPA Muhammad Sajid Jokhio also participated in the protest. The National Highway was blocked for traffic for at least half an hour, causing long queues of vehicles to be jammed at the major thoroughfare. On hearing news of the protest and the resultant traffic jam, police officials reached the site and tried to negotiate with the protesters.

The family requested the Chief Justice of Pakistan and higher officials to ensure the arrest of "the beast" and punish him in a way that no one would ever dare commit such a crime again.



The victim's father pleaded the police officials to arrest the perpetrator and bring him to justice. On receiving assurances of a thorough investigation, the protesters ended their demonstration. The family then left for their ancestral village in Qambar Shahdadkot for the child's burial.

CM Sindh Murad Ali Shah took notice of the incident and ordered the Karachi Police chief AIG Dr Amir Sheikh to immediately arrest the perpetrator and submit a report of the incident.

Awaiting DNA results

Meanwhile, Medico-Legal Officer Dr Zakia, who performed the post-mortem, said that DNA samples and organ specimen had been collected from the victim's body, which would be cross-checked with the DNA samples collected from the detained suspects. 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 2^nd, 2019.