‘Prime suspect’ changing statements as police probe minor girl’s rape and murder

Police investigators probing the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl in the Korangi area are making frantic efforts to solve the case, saying that the apparent prime suspect admitted to having committed the brutal crime on Saturday after initially denying his involvement.

“The suspect is being interrogated who is consistently changing its statements,” Zone East police chief DIG Saqib Ismail Memon told The News. “The DNA test will be conducted on an apparent prime suspect to confirm his involvement.”

DIG Memon said that the suspect’s statements were being verified, while the DNA test report would confirm his involvement in the crime. He added that the suspect was a drug addict and had identified the victim girl.

Police said the suspect, Zakir, was being interrogated but he was consistently changing its statements. They added that the suspect had failed to provide satisfactory answers to the investigators so far, which had lent credence to suspicions of his involvement in the horrific incident.

Police sources said that initially, Zakir denied his involvement but later he admitted to the crime, saying that he put the girl in a rickshaw at around 11.30pm and drove for an hour. He said he was intoxicated when he took the girl to the Sunday Bazaar ground at around 12.30am in Korangi where he parked the rickshaw under a tree and raped the girl in the backseat of his three-wheeler.

“The girl was still alive and semi-conscious after I raped her,” Zakir confessed in his statement. “Her neck broke as she suddenly jumped from the rickshaw,” he reportedly told the police.

Investigators said the suspect later wrapped the victim in a piece of cloth and threw her body in a dumpster before going home. “He then told his wife that he had taken a ride to Jinnah Hospital and asked her to pack up,” the police said, while quoting the initial interrogation.

“Later, the suspect reached home with tickets for Multan and for bringing his clothes. He then phoned his wife and called somebody up first in the Sindhi Hotel area and then in Sohrab Goth.” Zakir is said to be a former worker of a political party and suffering from sexual diseases.

A police official said doctors in the preliminary medical report found that the girl was raped before being murdered. Her body was found in a dumpster. The girl had gone out of her house to play at 9pm on Tuesday, but when she had not come back, the family approached the police and registered a case at around midnight. The girl’s body was found in a garbage dump at 6am on Wednesday.

Investigators said the child had ventured out of her house at night following a power breakdown. However, when she did not return after some time, the family began to search for her. The girl’s body was found wrapped in a thick mat at 6am on Wednesday near a deserted school and a ground, where drug addicts were present. The post-mortem report showed she was raped and her neck was broken.

Maham’s case is much similar to that the case of five-year-old Marwa, who was killed in the similar manner about 10 months ago in Karachi’s PIB Colony, which falls also within the East Zone of the police. She was found dead in the Essa Nagri area on September 6 last year, two days after her kidnapping had occurred on September 4. Marwa was also abducted, raped and killed when she had gone out to buy biscuits from a nearby shop, never to be seen alive again.

“In Marwa’s case, about one and a half dozen suspects were detained and most of them were neighbours, and later the police arrested the prime suspect, who was a neighbour of the victim. The suspect in Marwa’s case was also a drug addict and killed the victim in the same manner,” the police official explained.