BADIN: Two youths travelling in a bus were arrested when the hand-carry ‘luggage’, wrapped in a cloth sheet, they possessed turned out to be the body of an eight-year-old girl.

The suspects, Shahid and Ghulam Hussain aka Sawan, had boarded the bus coming from Chambarr town on Monday morning. A policeman travelling in the same bus noticed their suspicious movements and attitude. He along with some other passengers came to them and insisted on unwrapping the luggage. Finding the girl’s body in their possession, the policeman called out the area police who took the two suspects and the body into custody.

Initial investigation and interrogation with the suspects, as well as a preliminary medical examination of the body performed at a hospital in Tando Ghulam Ali rural health centre, made some horrific disclosures.

The police quoted the suspects as revealing that the girl was their fifth victim as they used to kidnap underage girls, rape them repeatedly until their death and the bury them in a graveyard.

About their latest victim, they said they had abducted her at a place within Badin city five days ago and took her to Tando Ghulam Ali town, where they repeatedly raped her. She eventually died on Monday and they were in search of some desolate place to bury her when [Tando Ghulam Ali] police arrested them while travelling in the bus, they said.

Tando Ghulam Ali SHO Dhani Bukhsh Marri, quoting the medical report and interrogation, told journalists that the suspects subjected the girl to rape for four days and when they realised that her condition was deteriorating, they strangled her.

He said the victim’s condition might have turned serious due to profuse bleeding.

The police officer quoted Ghulam Hussain as saying that he along with Sawan had killed four other minor girls after subjecting them to repeated rape over the past two years. The suspects said the four girls were buried in a graveyard near Matli town.

The SHO said that a post-mortem examination of the body was performed at the Tando Allahyar Civil Hospital before it was handed over to her father.

He said that all five victims were the suspects’ close relatives as they belonged to nomad families currently occupying spaces within the proximity of the Golrachi byepass in Badin city.

An FIR was yet to be registered at the Chambarr police station.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2016