VEHARI: Two minor girls, missing since Thursday afternoon from Basti Chamanabad, were found killed in the nearby field in Mailsi on Friday.

Seven-year-old Sania, daughter of Abdul Ghafar, and her six-year-old cousin Fauzia, daughter of Ghulam Abbas, left home for the local mosque on Thursday afternoon and when they did not return, their families alerted the local police about the disappearance of the girls. The police registered a case against five people and launched a wide-scale search. On Friday morning, both girls were found dead in the nearby maize crop field.

District Police Officer (DPO) Akhtar Farooq visited the spot too. The families of the deceased girls said they had no enmity with anyone.

Station House Officer (SHO) Iqbal Shah said that on the complaint of Parveen Bibi, mother one of the deceased girls, got registered a kidnapping case against five people, of them three nominated, and all the nominated people -- Hanif, Hasham and Azhar -- had been arrested.

“The police are taking all aspects into consideration and more facts would be revealed after postmortem reports,” he added. The police shifted bodies to the Mailsi Tehsil Headquarters Hospital for postmortem.

The SHO said told Dawn the initial autopsy report showed that both girls were strangled to death. He said the police were conducting raids in various parts of Mailsi and Kehror Pacca to arrest the remaining suspects.

He said the police registered a murder case against five accused. He did not mention the name of the two suspects yet to be arrested. Deceased girl families demanded that the chief minister take action of the incident. According to the police, Chief Minister Usman Buzdar took notice of the incident and ordered arrest of the culprits.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2019