KARACHI(National Times)- A three-year-old girl was found murdered at her doorstep in Quaidabad and initial findings of a post-mortem examination confirmed that she had been subjected to “violent rape” before being murdered, officials said on Wednesday.
Police Surgeon Summaiya Syed described the gruesome murder as “one of the most horrific cases” she had seen in her career. “All rape-murder cases of children are horrific, but some are more [terrible] than the others. This was one of them. Really disturbing,” she said.
The incident prompted the inspector general of police (IGP) to form a high-level probe team, tasking the DIG of East Zone to conduct transparent investigation of the case.
The Quaidabad police said the body of Kulsoom Mohammed Qasim, stuffed in a gunny bag, was found outside her home near Mustafa Masjid in Muslimabad Colony on Tuesday night.
According to the girl’s family, she went out of her home at around 12 noon to play but had not returned by 4:30 pm. Her mother called her husband and informed him about her disappearance. The family launched a search on their own but to no avail. Later in the evening, when Kulsoom’s grandfather returned home after offering Maghrib prayer at a mosque, he saw a gunny bag lying there. When he opened it, to his horror, he found the body of his granddaughter.
The corpse was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where doctors after conducting a post-mortem examination collected swabs for DNA and reserved the cause of death till the receipt of reports.
The police surgeon told Dawn that “physical findings strongly suggestive of violent rape” and that there were “multiple marks of resistance on the body”.
The Quaidabad police registered a case on the complaint of the girl’s father against unknown persons under Sections 302 (premediated murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 376 (punishment for rape), 377 (unnatural offenses), 363 (kidnapping) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
On Wednesday, Malir SSP Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada visited the area, met with the family of the victim and assured them that the killers would be arrested soon.
Taking notice of the rape and murder, IGP Javed Alam Odho formed a high-level committee, led by DIG East, for comprehensive and transparent investigation.
“People involved in this horrific incident do not deserve any leniency and they will be taken to task,” he said.
Also, Home Minister Ziaul Hasan Lanjar took notice of the rape and murder of the minor girl and directed the police to update him on the investigations until the arrest of the killers.
