LAHORE: The alleged rapist and killer of four children of Chunian admitted to his crimes on Wednesday before a judicial magistrate, deputy prosecutor general Abdul Rauf Watoo told media.
Sohail Shahzad, the prime suspect in the case, was arrested by police after a long search. During the investigation, the suspect confessed to murdering four minor boys, the public prosecutor said.
The prosecutor further added that the suspect was produced before a magistrate to record his statement under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).
The arrest of the suspect was made possible after Geo-fencing for 1,649 suspects and testing 1.543 DNA samples.
Imran Ali was arrested on Jan 23, 2018, and on June 12 the Supreme Court had turned down his appeal against the death sentence, noting that he had admitted to committing similar offences with eight other minor victims. Ali was subsequently executed in October.
Four children — aged between eight and 12 years — had gone missing since June with the latest, Faizan, 8, disappearing on the night of September 16.
The remains of three were found on September 17 from sand dunes near Chunian bypass.
Shehzad grabbed the police’s attention after his brother filed a missing person’s report on September 22. According to the police complaint, Shehzad took the family’s tractor to the market in the Chunian area and then disappeared.
Police used Shehzad’s four mobile numbers to trace his location. After finding him in Rahim Yar Khan district, he was arrested and brought to Kasur for DNA testing.
One reason for linking Shehzad to the crime, officials said, was that when the police searched for his phone’s locations over the past few days, one of his numbers was found to be in the area from where Faizan had gone missing.
According to sources, Shehzad had also spent five years in jail after being convicted for sodomy a few years ago.