January 01, 2009	Thursday	Muharram 03, 1430

KARACHI, Dec 31: The body of a 12-year-old girl, who had been missing since Dec 23, was recovered on Wednesday on the information given by a seminary teacher who allegedly killed the victim after raping her, police and witnesses said.

The Moch Koh police said that the body was found in a gunny bag lying at a desolate place near the victim’s house in Nawab Colony. The body was shifted to the Civil Hospital for a postmortem examination.

Sources at the medico-legal section told Dawn that the victim was strangled. They said that the victim’s viscera had been sent for a chemical examination to ascertain whether she had been criminally assaulted.

They said that Mohammed Salim, a factory worker, had reported on Dec 25 that his daughter had been kidnapped for ransom and he had received a ransom call.

The police said that the case (FIR 354/2008) registered under Section 365-A of the Pakistan Penal Code was referred to the Anti-Violent Crime Cell, which tracked down the suspect in the victim’s locality.

They said the suspect was arrested on Tuesday and during the preliminary interrogation he confessed to having raped and killed the victim, who was one of his students at the seminary.

Killed in accident

A 26-year-old man was killed by a hit-and-run vehicle that also collided with an auto-rickshaw near Qayyumabad.

The Korangi Industrial Area police said that the victim, Abdul Hameed, son of Ghulam Haider, was crossing a road when the unidentified car knocked him down.

They said the victim, a labourer and resident of Sharifabad Colony in Korangi, died instantly. The body was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal proceedings.

The police said that the body was later handed over to the victim’s family.