The administrative judge of the anti-terrorism courts in Karachi on Tuesday remanded in police custody three suspects in a case pertaining to the rape and murder of a minor girl.

Police claimed to have arrested the three suspects for their alleged involvement in the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl, Marwah, from Pir Bukhari Colony within the jurisdiction of PIB Colony police station.

On Tuesday, the investigating officer produced the three suspects before the administrative judge of the ATCs to seek their physical remand for interrogation and investigation.

The IO informed the court that the minor girl had gone to a shop on the morning of September 4, from where she went missing. Two days later, her body was found from a garbage collection point in the locality.

The kidnapping, rape and murder of the child had angered residents of the area, who staged a protest on the main University Road after her burial the next morning.

On Tuesday, the IO disclosed before the court that during the course of the investigation and as per statements of witnesses, it was discovered that the minor girl was subjected to sexual assault, adding that her body was wrapped in two different pieces of clothes and dumped at the garbage collection point.

The IO, Inspector Qurban Hussain Abbasi, further said that a local tailor, Muhammad Javed, identified the pieces of cloth and disclosed that one of his workers (tailor) was given the said pieces.

On further investigation, said the IO, it transpired that the tailor’s employee had a criminal history and was the victim's neighbour. The suspect's wife had left him six to seven years ago, the IO said, adding that during interrogation, the suspect had disclosed that he, along with two others, had subjected the minor girl to gang-rape, which resulted in her death.

IO Abbasi requested that the suspects be remanded into police custody till September 28 to complete the investigation and fulfil other legal formalities.

However, the judge remanded them into police custody till September 26 with the direction to the IO to produce them on the next date of hearing along with an investigation report.

A case was registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 376 (punishment for rape), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code, read with Section 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, at the PIB Colony police station.