MARDAN: A missing four-year-old girl, whose body was recovered from fields in Janbaz Narray locality of Mardan on Friday, was subjected to sexual assault, according to the medical report.

Hospital sources said besides sexual assault, the girl’s body also carried marks of physical torture as her hands and legs were also found broken.

Talking to journalists, district police officer Sajjad Khan said that the grandfather of the slain girl had lodged FIR in the Saddar police station on August 11 after the girl went missing.

He said that the police along with locals started search for the missing girl and recovered the body from the nearby sugarcane fields.

Sajjad Khan said that they shifted the body to the Mardan Medical Complex Hospital for postmortem and also sent samples of the body for forensic report. He said that the police had also started geo-fencing of the area.

He said that 15 suspects have been taken into custody for interrogation.

“I have constituted a joint investigation team for probe into the case,” he said, adding that SP investigations Mohammad Ayaz Khan would lead the JIT and other members of the team would be SP operations Mushtaq Ahmad, DSP investigations Janzada Khan, DSP Sheikh Malton Tayyib Jan, SHO Saddar police station Ajab Khan Durrani and SHO city police station Mohsin Fawad Khan.

The district police officer assured family members of the victim girl of speedy justice and fair investigation.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2019