KARACHI: An eight-year-old boy was kidnapped, raped and murdered in F.B Industrial Area, which prompted the relatives to block the main road in protest while one suspect was arrested, police said on Friday.

Area SHO Farrukh Shaharyar said that the minor had gone missing in Shafiq Colony, Block-22, F.B Area at around 6.30pm on Thursday.

The family did not lodge his missing report. Instead, announcements were made from mosques in the area at about 10.30pm.

The officer added that at about 12.30am, area residents saw a person who was carrying something wrapped in a bed sheet.

They held the man down and found the body of the boy wrapped in the cloth.

Dozens of relatives and neighbours reached the spot.

However, they did not inform the police or hand over the suspect to law enforcers.

The officer claimed that the people reportedly held a ‘jirga’ to settle the matter. However, an assistant sub-inspector, Zakir Naeem, who lives in the same area came to know about it and informed Madadgar-15.

The police rushed to the spot, took the suspect into custody and sent the body of the boy to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities at around 1.30am.

Quoting doctors, the SHO said apparently there were no injury marks on his body. However, there were bruises on the neck of the boy.

The doctors reserved cause of death for chemical examiner’s report.

The doctors also told the investigators that the boy had been subjected to criminal assault.

The police have registered a case against the held suspect on complaint of the victim’s father for murder and rape.

During the initial probe, the suspect sometimes admitted to raping and killing the child, but thereafter retracted his statement.

SHO Shaharyar added that the police had obtained information from the area, which revealed that the arrested man had been involved in similar cases in the past.

The suspect was stated to be a neighbour of the victim boy.

Meanwhile, relatives carrying coffin of the victim boy protested on the main road near Shafiq Mor on Friday and demanded strict punishment for the held suspect.

As a result of the protest, traffic moving from Nagan intersection to Sohrab Goth was diverted to alternative routes.

Two ‘hitmen’ held

The CTD police on Friday claimed to have arrested two suspects Munawwar Iqbal and Waseem, alias Commando, affiliated with the MQM-L in Pak Colony.

The suspects were allegedly involved in targeted killings of three policemen, two senior education officers, six Baloch youths and three workers of the Jamaat-i-Islami from 1995 to 2013, said the CTD officer, Chaudhry Ghulam Safdar.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2020