KASUR: Police on Friday took two people into custody in connection with the Zainab murder case and termed it an important development in the search of suspect(s) involved in the case.

Six-year-old Zainab Amin was kidnapped from her neighbourhood on Jan 4. She was raped and later murdered. Her body was found from a heap trash on Jan 9.

According to sources, investigators found an empty box near the body of the girl and one of the suspects arrested on Friday was identified by the help of a forensic examination. The suspect had already been booked in six rape cases. The other suspect is his brother who is also booked in some similar cases.

The sources said the two brothers were residents of the College Road area near the Fruit and Vegetable Market from where a minor rape survivor was found in November. The girl is still under treatment at Children’s Hospital, Lahore.

The joint investigation team formed on Jan 10 to probe the Zainab murder case has collected data of 300 mobile phone numbers and six of them have been marked for further investigation.

NA speaker forms committee for suggesting recommendations to stop child abuse incidents

The sources said locator vans had been working in Kasur for the past three days to trace the location of the two suspects.

They said they were arrested from a place outside the district where they were hiding. The police had interrogated around 1,300 people and released many of them after their DNA tests.

Also on Friday, Punjab Inspector General of Police Arif Nawaz told reporters that investigators were going in the right direction.

A new video footage emerged on social media regarding a suspect moving near the house of the victim.

A police official said that the JIT had not released any video footage. In fact, the video clip was the initial part of the first video shared by the family of the victim with the JIT.

Separately, on a call at helpline, police raided two rented houses in Ali Park and Peerowala Road whose tenants had gone missing. Police took the owners into custody to know the whereabouts of the tenants.

In Islamabad, National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq on Friday formed a 10-member committee for suggesting recommendations to stop child abuse incidents.

The committee has been asked to give its recommendations to the house within 30 days.

Earlier a motion to form the committee was moved by federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab. The motion was unanimously adopted by the house.

The motion said: “A special committee may be appointed under rule 244(B) of the Rule and Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, 2007, consisting of the following members recommend measures to stop child abuse cases such as Zainab taking place all over the country in order to prevent occurrence of such incidents in future by addressing the legal remedies, preventive measures, effective investigation and speedy prosecution and report to the house within thirty days.”

Members of the committee are: Marriyum Aurangzeb, Zahid Hamid, Talal Chaudhry, Shaista Pervaiz, Shahida Akhtar Ali, Romina Khursheed Alam, Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, Engineer Ali Muhammad Khan Advocate, Ms Kishwer Zehra and Sahibzada Tariqullah.

Syed Irfan Raza contributed to this report from Islamabad

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2018