KARACHI, Sept 5: A four-year-old girl, admitted to Civil Hospital Karachi after being subjected to torture and rape in a shanty town of North Nazimabad, is in a serious condition. The minor girl was taken to the hospital on Aug 30, at least 10 days after the incident. Due to delay in the provision of medical aid, infection developed in her vagina, which spread over to her thigh.

Burn marks are visible on her chest while she has lost sight of her one eye. Both of her arms and a leg were fractured when she was taken to hospital, sources in the Civil Hospital said.

The girl was medically examined and admitted to the gynaecology ward where she was being provided treatment.

The sources said the injuries appeared to be the result of worst kind of torture. The injuries showed that the girl did not fall off the hill as was claimed by some members of the family, the sources added.

The family is unable to bear the expenses of treatment and the staff of the hospital has been arranging medicines for the girl through different means.

Meanwhile, it is learnt from staff in the ward where the girl is admitted that the medical superintendent, on the directives of the provincial health minister, has put restrictions on the media to meet the victim and her family without seeking permission.

When the girl was brought to the hospital, the family members told the officials that she had fallen off a hill and received serious injuries. Later, the mother of the victim disclosed that her daughter was taken away by her son-in-law, Kamran.

Hospital sources quoted the mother as saying that on Aug 14 she was busy in household chores when Kamran came to her house and told her that he wanted to adopt the girl as he does not have children.”

The mother later came to know that the girl received serious injuries when she had fallen off the hill. She took her to different government hospitals and finally landed at the Civil Hospital.

However, the police were not convinced that the girl was raped and subjected to torture. A police official, investigating the case, said the medico-legal report about rape had been reserved and it was yet to be ascertained that the girl had been raped or not. He said that rape had not been established so far. He said that the girl did not appear to have been tortured. The marks of injuries showed that she had fallen off a hill, he added.

The police said that Kamran’s wife (the victim’s elder sister) gave a statement to the police, saying that her husband was a practising Muslim. She said that one arm of the girl was fractured when a pushcart hit her and the second one was fractured when she slipped in the bathroom.

The police could not explain why the suspected rapist Kamran had been absconding since the doctors expressed suspicion that the girl had been raped.