KARACHI, Sept 28: Police said on Saturday that a couple and their accomplice had been arrested in the kidnap, abuse and murder case of a 13-year-old schoolgirl. The woman and her husband were detained in the city and the accomplice was held in Quetta, they said.

Speaking at a press conference in his office, CIA DIG Sultan Khwaja said the man who had helped the couple was detained in Quetta and was being brought to Karachi. He had provided a SIM card to the suspect through which he had made a ransom call to the girl’s father.

Karachi Central SSP Amir Farooqi said the woman was a cousin of the victim girl and she had taken her away from the school. He said the couple had orchestrated the schoolgirl’s kidnap for ransom but subsequently they killed her as the case had been reported to the police and they feared the girl would disclose their identity to the police.

The police said the victim’s father had recently sold his property for around Rs1 million and the suspected couple knowing this demanded the ransom for the girl’s release.

The SSP said the couple had taken the girl to Seaview beach, where they killed her on Thursday.

SSP Farooqi said the man denied sexually abusing the girl. However, the officer said that they had decided to conduct a DNA test of both male suspects.

The class-IV student was taken away by the woman from her school in Azizbabad on Sept 24 at 11am and two days later her corpse was found on the beach.

The Azizabad police in whose jurisdiction the kidnap occurred had registered an FIR (212/2013) under Sections 365-B (kidnapping, abducting or inducing a woman to compel for marriage or sexual abuse, etc) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code the same day on a complaint of the father. She was the only child of her parents.