KARACHI: Police on Sunday claimed to have made a ‘breakthrough’ in the investigation of the rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl whose trussed up body was found in an aboveground water tank in Bin Qasim’s Railway Colony on March 1.

“The case has almost been solved,” said DIG East Amir Farooqi.

He said that a suspect was in police custody, but investigators were waiting for the result of a DNA test to match his samples.

The suspect, aged around 21, would formally be arrested and charged with the crime after the DNA report, he said, adding that the results were expected in a couple of days.

The DIG said that the suspect lived in the same apartment building and was a neighbour of the victim girl. During initial questioning he “confessed” to his crime, he added.

He told the investigators that he murdered the girl for fear of being identified, the official said.

Police incorporate anti-terrorism law into the FIR of the incident

The suspect used to work at a coal unloading project at Bin Qasim port and had no work for the past two weeks. He was waiting for a ship to come and was about to resume his job in a day or two, the DIG said.

Bin Qasim SHO Arif Razzak told Dawn that the incident occurred in a residential colony for Pakistan Railway employees and it was not possible for any ‘outsiders’ to roam there unnoticed.

He said that the body was found in the water tank of the same building so the investigators focussed on the possibility of the involvement of someone from the same building.

Anti-terrorism law

The area SHO said that the police had detained 15 persons from the building in Marshal Yard Railway Colony for questioning. Their DNA samples had been taken by doctors at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and sent to a laboratory for testing.

DIG Farooqi said that all the 15 suspects were on two-day police remand. “We will release all others except three brothers, including the main suspect, and produce them in court for further remand,” he said.

The police had registered a case against unknown persons on the complaint of the girl’s father. “We have also incorporated relevant section of the Anti-Terrorism Act into the FIR,” said the DIG.

The victim, a student of fourth grade, was the daughter of a railway employee. Her parents took the coffin to their native town in Kamber for burial.

She had gone missing at around 6pm on Friday but the police claimed that the family did not report her disappearance at the police station. The relatives launched a search and found the body in the water tank.

The body was shifted to the JPMC, where doctors confirmed that she was raped and strangulated to death.

The incident angered area people who took the coffin to the National Highway to stage a sit-in. They demanded justice and immediate arrest of the killers. They ended their protest after Pakistan Peoples Party leaders Shahla Raza and Sajid Jokhio assured them that the killers would be taken to task.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2019