New Town police on Friday arrested a resident of Katarian, Rawalpindi for allegedly repeatedly raping his 15-year-old daughter.

The man's wife told the police that her husband used to rape their daughter but the young girl had kept quiet out of fear. According to the wife, she previously suspected that her husband was sexually assaulting their daughter but it was only when her sister — the girl's maternal aunt — saw the man raping the victim that her suspicions were confirmed.

She said her daughter, a student of grade seven, also confirmed that she was repeatedly assaulted by her father.

The investigating officer of the case, Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) Afzal Ahmad, told DawnNews that the accused has been remanded into police custody for four days while report of the medical examination of the girl is awaited.

The first information report (FIR) of the incident includes section 376 [punishment of rape] of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Cases of such nature are not uncommon in the country; last year in July, Millat Park police had arrested a man on charges of raping his teenage daughter.

The year before that, in 2016, Daska police had arrested a man who confessed to raping his minor daughter.

In October 2015, a sessions court in Karachi had sentenced a man to 12 years in prison for subjecting his teenage daughter to a sexual assault. The court had also imposed a fine of Rs50,000 on the man.

Since the start of 2018, there has been a marked upsurge in the reporting of sexual abuse cases across Pakistan. The brutal rape and murder of Zainab Ansari in Kasur earlier this month in particular shocked the entire country, with #JusticeforZainab becoming the rallying cry in a nationwide drive to end violence against children.