DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Police claimed on Sunday to have arrested nine people in connection with the rape-and-murder case of a nine-year-old girl.

An official of Dera town police station said that nine suspected persons were arrested on the suspicion of raping and killing a girl in Zafar Abad area, last week.

The girl went missing when she left her house to buy some daily use commodities from a nearby shop in the afternoon. But she didn’t return, said the official, adding that the next day, the body of the girl was found in a field near Lachra, some two kilometers from her house. The girl was strangled after being raped, he maintained.

The incident has been largely protested by the local residents who have demanded immediate arrest of the culprits.

Meanwhile, Dera commissioner Mohammad Mushtaq Jadoon visited the bereaved family and expressed sympathy with the family and assured them of arresting and giving exemplary punishment to the culprits.