Sea View murder case: MLO confirms rape but police waiting on other reports

Officials arrest three suspects, one of whom is reportedly the victim’s maternal cousin.

KARACHI:

Police officials are still waiting on reports to confirm whether N*, who was found dead at Sea View on Thursday morning, was raped. 

At a joint press conference on Saturday, CIA DIG Sultan Khawaja, DIG West Javed Odho, CPLC Chief Ahmed Chinoy and District Central SSP Amir Farooqui lauded the police’s efforts for having completed the investigations within 48 hours and having arrested the suspects allegedly responsible for the crime.

The officials, quoting the initial investigation, reported that the possibility of rape had been ruled out and that they were treating it as a case of kidnapping for ransom for now. “We cannot confirm if the victim was raped or not till we receive the results of the final postmortem and DNA sampling tests,” said DIG Khawaja.

Meanwhile, Dr Rohina Hassan, who conducted N*’s medico-legal examination at the Jinnah Postgraduate Mecial Centre was of a different opinion. “I declared that the child was subjected to rape. It was my professional view which I reached after having conducted all the necessary physical and chemical tests,” she told The Express Tribune. She added that the other chemical and DNA tests were only performed to support her observations and judgement. Police officials also claimed to have arrested three suspects who were allegedly responsible for the crime. Two of the detainees were a recently married couple, Reema and her husband, Bilal. The suspect, Reema, is reportedly the victim’s maternal cousin.

Police officials, quoting the suspects, said that on the morning that the girl was kidnapped, Reema had gone to her school at about 11am and had asked N* to accompany her home as her mother had fallen sick. The school authorities, after verifying from the child that Reema was indeed her cousin, had let N* go with her. The police officials said that though the school had shown negligence, they were not directly involved in the incident.

Meanwhile, Bilal and Reema had taken N* to a friend’s house in New Karachi where they kept her till later that evening. The police said that the friend was not being regarded as a suspect as there was no evidence to suggest he was directly involved.

Later, when Bilal had called N*’s house to ask for ransom of Rs1 million, the victim’s mother had told him that N*’s father had left for the police station to register an FIR regarding the child’s disappearance.

Bilal said that after hearing about the police’s involvement, he panicked and decided to kill her. That same night, Bilal and Reema allegedly took N* to Sea View where they strangled her while holding her head under water. Bilal and Reema told the media that they kidnapped the victim for ransom but did not abuse her sexually. The third suspect, Shahid, was arrested from Quetta on Saturday by the Karachi Police. The suspect, also a cousin of N*, had agreed to provide an unregistered SIM card in exchange of 25 per cent of the ransom amount.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 29^th, 2013.