LAHORE: Another incident of cruelty shocked the nation when some unidentified persons raped a five-year-old girl and threw her outside a teaching hospital in the wee hours on Friday.

A watchman who found the girl unconscious with blood stains on her clothes moved her to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. Doctors at the hospital examined her and confirmed that she had been ‘raped’ repeatedly for more than an hour.

They said her condition suggested that her tormentors were more than one.

Daughter of a Wapda employee, the girl was playing with her three-year-old cousin outside her Ghosia Colony, Mughalpura, residence on Thursday evening when she went missing. At about 7pm it was realised that the two had gone missing.

The kidnapper(s) threw the girl on the green belt outside the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and the boy near the Services Hospital.

A traffic warden who found the boy weeping outside the Services Hospital took him to the office of a private TV channel and then to the Child Protection Bureau.

Doctors at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital immediately referred the girl to the Services Hospital for surgical intervention due to some medical conditions of a serious nature she had developed during the ‘forced rape’.

Parents remained unaware about the whereabouts of their children for many hours. They came to know about the actual picture from TV channels which gave prominent coverage to the unfortunate incident on Friday morning.

Services Hospital doctors performed two minor procedures and moved the girl to the intensive care unit (ICU).

A doctor told Dawn that the little girl was facing a serious medical complication called ‘vaginal haemorrhage’.

He said the girl was unable to pass stool and urine and he suspected that she might have been raped from both sides.

He also said that she might develop fertility issues in future. However, it would be premature to give any final decision as the patient was undergoing treatment, he added.

The doctor said the girl had undergone a laparotomy procedure under general anaesthesia and was still in critical condition.

“We rushed to the neighbours and in the locality when both children did not come home after an hour or so,” the father of the ill-fated girl told Dawn.

He said he made announcements through mosques and visited three police stations, but could not find the children.

“My daughter is the youngest of my 10 children and what has happened to her is beyond comprehension for me and my family,” he said in a trembling tone.

He called upon Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to “publicly hang the criminals on the very spot where they committed this inhuman act”.

The Mughalpura police have lodged a case under sections 363 and 753 of the Pakistan Penal Code against unidentified suspects, with no arrest so far.

The chief minister took serious note of the incident and directed police to arrest the culprits.

Lahore DIG (operations) Tahir Rai told Dawn late on Friday that no arrest had so far been made in the sexual assault case. He, however, added that police were using all resources to apprehend the culprits.

Sources said that police had taken into custody some suspects from the locality from where the girl was kidnapped.

CJ NOTICE: Taking note of the assault, the Chief Justice of Pakistan has sought a report from the chief of Punjab police.