KARACHI: Police investigating an eight-year-old girl’s rape case detained a suspect for interrogation, as her condition improved and she was discharged from hospital on Saturday, according to officials.

The girl was discharged from the hospital on Saturday evening as her condition had improved, said Dr Jamal Raza, director of the National Institute of Child Health.

Orangi SSP Investigations Akhtar Farooq told Dawn that the police were interrogating the person who had brought her to the police station. The held suspect claimed that he had found her at Abdullah Mor in Surjani Town, but it emerged during interrogation that she had been with him for at least two hours.

He told the interrogators that he had taken her to a private clinic and a police post in Surjani before reaching the police station.

Her parents were traced who took her away, said Orangi SP Abid Ali Baloch. However, the officer said, she had not fully come out of trauma. It was for this reason that the police had not taken her statement, the SP claimed.

According to the findings of the initial probe, the eight-year-old child was kidnapped while she was playing outside her home in Future Colony, Landhi, on Thursday at around 5.30pm. She was subjected to criminal assault before being thrown at Abdullah Mor in Surjani Town at around 7.30pm.

SSP Farooq said no substantive evidence had emerged during the investigations.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2017