ISLAMABAD: Investigators have picked up two security guards of the non-functional metro bus station in G-11 where the body of a girl was found dumped in a washroom on Monday morning.

Police officers told Dawn that the security guards had been detained on suspicion.

They said circumstances suggested that the girl, aged between 11 and 12 years, was murdered somewhere else and her body was taken to the metro station and dumped there. It is also possible that the girl was brought to the station alive. In either case, suspicion rose over the guards, they added.

The guards were told that how it was possible that someone brought the girl, dead or alive, to the station without being noticed by them.

The investigators also examined footage of the Safe City Project cameras installed around the station and along the roads leading to it. But so far there has been no clue which could help them identify any suspicious activity.

A case has been registered with Ramna police station on the charge of murder against unidentified people.

The FIR said after getting information the police reached the station and found the girl’s body lying on the floor of a washroom.

Marks of strangulation were found on the body, it added. So far, the girl has not been identified, the officers said.

Dr Wasim Khawaja of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) told Dawn that a medical board consisting of three female doctors conducted an autopsy and found signs of strangulation around the girl’s neck as well as injury marks on the body. The victim had also been sexually assaulted, he added.

Dr Khawaja said samples were taken from the body to establish the cause of death, adding that final opinion would be given after receiving the chemical and forensic reports from Lahore.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2021