Murder: Nine-year-old girl raped, killed

Police have arrested three suspects who confessed before interrogation.

SHERGARH: Three youth were arrested in Hafizabad, Mardan on Tuesday for raping and killing a nine-year-old girl.

Lund Khwar police SHO Fazal Subhan said that the father of the child filed a report saying that his daughter went missing on her way home from school on Monday afternoon. On Tuesday, her body, bearing torture marks, was found in a cornfield near their house.

The body was taken to the District Headquarters Hospital for an autopsy, which revealed that the girl was sexually assaulted multiple times and then killed.

After the funeral prayers on Wednesday evening, the police arrested two brothers, Zain* and Wajahat*, aged 19 and 20 respectively, and 18-year-old Riaz*as suspects.

“People told us that these three boys were standing outside the school when it finished, and were witnessed talking to the girl,” the SHO said. However, before the police could begin interrogation, the suspects confessed.

They said that after committing the crime they gave the girl Rs300 and told her not to say anything. They further told the police that she was crying and bleeding severely. SHO Subhan said that the suspects began beating the girl to make her stop crying and then put clay in her mouth after which she passed out. She died soon after. Police said that the boys threw the bag into a sugarcane field, but then came back late at night and shifted the body to a cornfield near the victim’s house.

SHO Subhan said that on Wednesday, the alleged rapists told another child to go to the victim’s house and tell her father that his daughter’s body had been found near their house. The accused further told the police that they threw the body near the girl’s house to make it easier for the family to find her.

*Names have been changed

Published in The Express Tribune, September 6^th, 2012.