Raped, strangulated… she was just five

In yet another gory tale of a minor being raped, the body of a five-year-old girl, who had been first raped and then strangled to death, was recovered buried in a pile of sand near the Al-Asif Square in the Sohrab Goth area on Wednesday.
Zainab had been missing since Tuesday evening when she left her house to see her father, but did not return.
Early Wednesday morning, the police recovered the girl’s body and shifted to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital (ASH) for a post-mortem.
Gulistan-e-Jauhar SHO Sohail Ahmed Suleri told Pakistan Today that the police had received a phone call from an unidentified caller who informed about the body of a minor girl.
“Initially, the identity of the minor girl could not be ascertained but later her heirs reached the ASH for identification,” he said.
The SHO said the police had not yet received the medico-legal report of Zainab’s autopsy and it will be early to say that the girl was subjected to rape or not.
Talking with Pakistan Today, the girl’s father said he is a fruit vendor and had left the house for work.
“Last evening, Zainab was insisting for sweets from her mother and my wife sent her to me. I gave her five rupees to buy sweets and she went away,” Jamshed said. “When I returned home, my wife asked for me about Zainab and I told her that she went away after I gave her the five rupees.”
However, when Zainab’s mother said that the girl had not come back to the house, Jamshed started looking for his daughter in the neighbourhood and also informed his in-laws. “Together we searched for Zainab but could not find her,” he added.
Early Wednesday morning, a neighbour informed Jamshed that a body of a girl had been recovered from the sand piles near Al-Asif Square and was shifted to a hospital.
“We went to the ASH immediately and the girl was my Zainab,” said Jamshed, bursting into tears.
When approached for comments, ASH Medico-Legal Officer (MLO) Dr Zakia confirmed that the minor girl was gang raped and later strangled to death.
“The preliminary post-mortem report confirms Zainab was gang raped,” she said. “We have also sent some samples for DNA tests, but it is definite that she was subjected to rape more than once and strangulated afterwards.”
The Gulistan-e-Jauhar police have registered a case (17/12) under sections 364 and 374/34 of the Pakistan Panel Code against unidentified suspects on the complaint of the victim’s father.