KARACHI: A seven-year-old girl was raped and tortured to death in her sister’s house in Bhittaiabad area, police said on Wednesday.

They said that the police came to know about the incident on Tuesday night when an uncle of the minor girl brought her dead to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.

Medico-legal officer Dr Zakia Khurshid had told media on Tuesday night that the girl was sexually assaulted and the body bore marks of torture and cigarette burns. She also said that the girl was strangled.

The incident took place within the remit of the Sachal police station and on Wednesday East Zone SSP (Investigation) Abid Qaimkhani visited the house, the scene of the crime.

He told Dawn that around four to five close relatives of the girl had been taken into custody for questioning.

The police got significant clues, he said, adding that DNA samples of the suspects and the victim girl were being taken to ascertain the identity of the person who assaulted her.

The SSP said that the girl’s father died about one and a half years ago and since then she was living at her uncle’s house in Bhittaiabad in Gulistan-i-Jauhar. An elder sister of the victim is married to their uncle’s son.

He said that the girl was beaten with a steel pipe and police had recovered it.

The SSP said that one of the detained suspects had ‘confessed’ to have beaten her but the police were investigating the matter to determine the identity of the suspect who subjected her to criminal assault.

He said that the victim’s elder brother lived in their native town in interior of Sindh.

On Wednesday night, SSP Abid Qaimkhani told Dawn that Sachal police have registered FIR against four nominated suspects on the complaint of the victim’s brother who had arrived from Jacobabad. The case has been registered under sections 302, 376 and 34 of Pakistan Penal Code. Three of the nominated suspects who happen to be close relatives have been arrested while the fourth was absconding.

The brother would take the victim’s body for burial to her native place in Jacobabad.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2018