ISLAMABAD: The police are searching for an official wanted for his alleged involvement in sexually assaulting a child at the National Special Education Centre for Mentally Retarded Children, officials said on Tuesday.

The incident was brought to the attention of the police by Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) section officer Sohail Shami, who lodged a complaint to register a case against the suspect.

The suspect is a therapist at the centre in H-8/4, where the victim, a 10-year-old girl, was enrolled in school. An FIR was registered at the Industrial Area police station on charges of sections 354 and 337-B of the PPC.

The investigating officer in the case, Sub-Inspector Arshad Ali, told Dawn the incident took place in December last year, but the matter was brought to the police in February. “We immediately registered a case against the suspect and began efforts to arrest him, as he went into hiding,” Mr Ali said. He added that he met with the victim for details into the incident.

He said officials from the centre and CADD were in a better position to explain the delay in informing the police of the incident.

A police official told Dawn on condition of anonymity that the case was registered four days ago, and the FIR was immediately sealed on the directives of senior police officers.

He said the case was considered a “high profile” one, and the police could not bear more embarrassment as they faced in the housemaid case, referring to the case regarding the abuse of Tayyaba, a child domestic employee.

The official said the whereabouts of the suspect had been discovered and a team was on its way to arrest him, and the FIR was unsealed after the suspect was located.

He said arresting the suspect was the investigators’ top priority, and after he was interrogated an official from the centre would also be questioned to establish the facts and the reason behind the delay in informing the police.

“It was either a deliberate attempt to cover [for] someone and spoil evidence, or it might be their internal policy,” the official said, adding that the suspect is an official and the crime occurred in an official establishment, and according to the standard operating procedure they inquired into the matter and later approached the concerned authority and law enforcement with permission.

“So far, we know that the matter was reported to CADD by the deputy director of National Special Education,” the police official said. Then the section officer was directed to inform the police with a request to register a case.

“Their unknown internal procedures took over 40 days, and now it will be a very tough task to prove the allegations levelled against the suspect,” the official said. “The victim was [intellectually disabled] so it was difficult to record her statement and have her identify the suspect,” he added.

Published in Dawn February 8th, 2017