A 70-year-old man was detained in Karachi's Korangi area on Sunday on charges of raping a minor girl, according to police.

“A minor girl aged six years has been allegedly raped by [a] 70-year-old suspect in Korangi 2-1/2, sector 34/2,” a police statement said.

It added that the suspect had been arrested and the girl had been shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medical examination.

Area police officer Mazhar Shah said according to the family's statement, the girl had left her home to purchase juice from a nearby shop for some guests the family was hosting.

When she returned home nearly half an hour later, she appeared "terrified". Upon being asked by her mother, the girl pointed towards the home of their neighbour who had allegedly covered her mouth before taking her inside the home and subjecting her to sexual assault.

The officer said the septuagenarian man lived in the area alone, while his family was in Faisalabad.

Police were investigating the case further.

In August, a report by the NGO Sahil had revealed that as many as 1,489 children, at least eight per day, were sexually abused in the first half of last year in the country. The victims included 785 girls and 704 boys.

The abusers were acquaintances of the victims or victims’ families in 822 cases, while strangers were involved in 135 reported cases, according to the report titled 'Cruel Numbers'.

The report said that in 98 cases, the victims were between the age of one to five years; in 331 cases, they were between six and 10 years of age; while the largest number of cases (490) involved victims between 11 to 15 years of age.