Rape of 3 minors in 2 days rocks Hazara

Police claim to have arrested as many as seven people in two of the cases

ABBOTTABAD: The Hazara division has been shaken to its core after police said that they had received as many as three cases of minors being raped in the past two days. The youngest of the victims was just seven-years-old while the oldest was 14.

Police, however, claim to have made arrests in at least two of the cases. In the first case, the Lora police said that Abdur Rehman alias “Arman” was arrested on the complaint of a woman who claimed that her seven-year-old daughter was allegedly raped.

Police said that they registered a first information report (FIR) on Monday under Section 376 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and CPA 50. Officials claimed that they managed to arrest the suspect in less than two hours.

In the second incident, the Havelian police said that a 14-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by three men. The girl’s parents lodged a complaint after which the police arrested three men including Lakkar Mandi (Wood Market) residents Ehsanullah and Fazal-e-Wahid along with Haripur resident Amanullah.

Afghan nationals, they were later produced before a judicial magistrate who granted police physical remand for further questioning.

In the third and most heinous incident, the body of a seven-year-old girl, identified as Kashaf was found near her native village of Khareela in the Nawanshehr area late on Sunday evening.

An autopsy confirmed that the girl had been raped and beaten with a staff of some sorts and then killed.

SP Qamar Hayat, while confirming that the girl had been raped before being killed, said that the Nawanshehr police registered a case and that they have deputed seven police squads to trace the suspected assailant.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 20^th, 2019.