Teen's body exhumed, desecrated in Bahawalpur

Necrophilia suspect killed in encounter

BAHAWALPUR:

A horrifying case of grave desecration has shaken Bahawalpur after the body of a 16-year-old girl was exhumed and desecrated in the suburban area of Inayati.

Police said the prime suspect, a self-styled practitioner of black magic, was later killed during a police encounter, while his accomplices remain at large.

The victim, Ramsha Bibi, had died after suffering an electric shock and was buried in a local graveyard on Sunday evening. However, when her family visited the grave the following morning, they found the soil disturbed and the body missing.

The family alerted the Inayati police, who cordoned off the area and launched a search.

A police team later recovered the body from nearby agricultural fields, confirming that the grave had been dug up during the night. District Police spokesperson Assistant Sub-Inspector Muhammad Kashif said a post-mortem was conducted and evidence of grave desecration was found, prompting the registration of a criminal case.

During the investigation, police identified Abdul Waheed, also known as Kala, a local resident known for claiming to practise black magic, as the main suspect. He was believed to have exhumed the body for occult-related purposes before dumping it in nearby fields.

Police said that after identifying Waheed and his accomplices, a raid was conducted to arrest them. However, the suspects opened fire on the police party, forcing officers to take defensive positions. During the exchange of fire, Waheed was critically injured—reportedly by bullets fired by his own associates while attempting to flee.

He was rushed to hospital by Rescue 1122, where doctors pronounced him dead. The remaining suspects managed to escape under the cover of darkness, and search operations are ongoing to apprehend them.

The incident has renewed public concern over a disturbing trend of grave desecration in different parts of the country. Over the past two years, at least a dozen similar cases have been reported nationwide. In 2024, a man in Karachi's Korangi area was arrested and confessed to exhuming and abusing four female bodies. In separate incidents in Rawalpindi and Lahore, bodies of five children were found removed from graves and left exposed.

In 2025, a group of 12 people exhumed a body in Rawalpindi's Dhamial area to relocate it for shrine construction.

Legal expert Muhammad Furqan Abdullah told The Express Tribune that successive federal governments have attempted to strengthen laws against such crimes since 2011.

He said a proposed Section 297-A under the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024, aims to increase penalties for exhumation and desecration of bodies and must be enacted without delay to serve as an effective deterrent.

Earlier in March 2022, a writ petition has been filed in Lahore High Court to stop necrophilia through strict laws and policies.

Syeda Izzat Fatima, who is a lawyer, contended in her petition that there had been numerous reported and unreported incidents in Pakistan where individuals had been caught molesting dead bodies but there were no specific laws to charge the culprits.

She cited an incident in which one Mohammad Riyaz was accused of molesting 48 bodies in Karachi's North Nazimabad Town.

The petitioner stated that Article 37 of the Constitution, dealing with "Promotion of social justice and eradication of social evils", covered the act of necrophilia, which was a social evil not just towards the deceased but their families as well. She said many families were reluctant to bury their female members in graveyards and they mostly kept protecting the graves for months in a fear that the deceased could also become a victim of the heinous act.