Seven more held in Charsadda minor girl murder case

CHARSADDA: The police have arrested seven more suspects in the rape-cum-murder case of a minor girl in the district on Friday, officials said.

“We had arrested 8 suspect yesterday and seven more were taken into custody today,” said the official, adding, the search operations has been going on for the second day to arrest the perpetrators of the heinous crime.

The police officials from Swabi, Mardan and Nowshera have also been included in the investigation team and placed at the disposal of District Police Officer (DPO) Charsadda Mohammad Shoaib to work out the case and bring the accused to justice.

Superintendent of Police (SP) Darvesh Khan is heading the investigation team while Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), City, Iqbal Khan has been replaced with DSP Bashir Yousafzai, who has long experience of dealing with such cases.

Two and a half year old Zainab, daughter of one Akhtar Muni, had gone missing on October 6 while playing outside her home. Her body was found dumped in the fields in Jabba Koroona in the limits of Daudzai Police Station in Peshawar on Wednesday. The body was taken to the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, where the postmortem report confirmed that the girl had been raped before being killed.

The police are grilling the arrested persons, including some relatives of Zainab. DPO Mohammad Shoaib said the police had preserved the fingerprints on the body of the victim girl and recovered a lock hair from the crime scene.

He added that geo-fencing of the area was being carried out, saying that the police were waiting for the DNA report. Meanwhile, federal Minister Mohammad Ali Khan visited the bereaved family and expressed sympathy with the parents of the victim. He assured her family that no effort would be spared to bring the accused to justice.

Akhtar Munir, father of Zainab, expressed satisfaction over the progress so far made in the case. He said that Zainab’s mother had become hysterical after learning about her rape and subsequent murder.

Also, Jamaat-e-Islami provincial head Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan and Qaumi Watan Party provincial chief Sikandar Hayat Khan Sherpao also visited the family and expressed deep sorrow and grief over the incident. They demanded the government to provide justice to the family and arrest the perpetrators at the earliest.

The two leaders asked the government to introduce strict laws to get the accused punished severely in order to check this menace. The government has failed to protect the life of the citizens, they alleged.

In Peshawar, the activists of Pakistan Citizen Organisation (PCO) staged a protest to demand the arrest of the killers of Zainab. Led by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MPA Rabbia Basri, the activists chanted slogans against the people involved in such crimes.

The protesters marched on the road and urged the government to award exemplary punishment to the culprits of such rape-cum-murder cases. They appealed to the chief of army staff and chief justice of Pakistan to provide justice to the victims by awarding strict punishment to the criminals so that no one could dare to commit such crimes against the innocent children. They said they would continue the protest till the acceptance of their demands and arrest of the criminals.