A three-year-old girl was raped and murdered in Karachi’s Quaidabad with her body found stuffed inside a gunny bag outside her home in Muslimabad Colony.
The victim, identified as Kulsoom Mohammed Qasim, had stepped out to play around noon. When she did not return by 4:30 pm, her mother contacted her father and the family began searching on their own.
Later that evening, her grandfather returned home after Maghrib prayers and spotted a gunny bag at the doorstep. He opened it and found his granddaughter’s body inside.
The corpse was taken to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where doctors carried out a post-mortem examination, collected DNA swabs and reserved the cause of death pending lab reports.
Police surgeon Summaiya Syed told a private media outlet that physical findings were “strongly suggestive of violent rape” and that the body bore “multiple marks of resistance”.
She added that all rape-murder cases of children are horrific, but some are more terrible than others. “This was one of them. Really disturbing,” the doctor said.
Quaidabad police registered a case on the complaint of the girl’s father against unknown persons under Sections 302, 201, 376, 377, 363 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
Malir Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada visited the area on Wednesday, met the family and assured them the killers would be arrested.
Meanwhile, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Javed Alam Odho formed a high-level investigation committee, led by the deputy inspector general (DIG) concerned, for what he called a “comprehensive and transparent” probe.
“People involved in this horrific incident do not deserve any leniency and they will be taken to task,” he remarked.
Home Minister Ziaul Hasan Lanjar also took notice of the case and directed police to keep him updated on the investigation until arrests were made.
