Police on Thursday launched a multi-pronged investigation into the kidnapping, rape and murder of a six-year-old girl in Karachi's Korangi area, registering a case of her killing under terrorism and other charges.

They also prepared a sketch of the possible suspect and sent the child's DNA samples to a laboratory at the University of Karachi, according to officials.

The minor girl had gone missing from her house in Ghous Pak area of Korangi on Tuesday night. Her body was found the next day from a garbage dump in Zaman Town near her residence after a search of nearly eight hours.

“Her autopsy showed that she had been raped, sodomised and then murdered,” said additional police surgeon at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre Dr Summaiya Syed.

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There were “multiple injuries to the head and body and private parts”, Dr Syed added.

Landhi SP Shahnawaz Chachar said Zaman Town police had registered the case's first information report (FIR) under Section 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, and sections dealing with kidnapping, rape and murder against unknown suspects. A DSP-rank officer has been assigned the investigation of the case, the officer added.

East Zone DIG Saqib Ismail Memon said a “multi-directional probe is under way based on the statements of witnesses, family and area residents.” He added that several suspects had been taken into custody and were being interrogated.

“Technical data is also being analysed, while a dedicated team has been constituted” to probe the case, DIG Memon said.

The senior officer told Dawn.com that DNA samples collected from the girl's body had been sent to a lab at Karachi University.

He said a sketch of the suspect had been prepared with the help of witnesses.

Meanwhile, Karachi police chief Imran Yaqub Minhas took notice of “unprofessional behaviour” of a Madadgar-15 police officer with the father of the victim and ordered an inquiry on the basis of which strict departmental action would be taken against the policeman, said a police spokesperson.

According to contents of the FIR reviewed by Dawn.com on Thursday, the victim’s father said that he worked at a private firm and had been living in Korangi's G-Area for the last 11 years in a rented house and had four children.

The complainant said he along with his three daughters, aged between two to nine years, was sitting outside on a street near his home as electricity had gone out in the locality at around 10:15pm on July 27. Some time later, he returned home along with two of his daughters, while his third daughter aged six remained outside to play with other children.

At around 10:45pm, his elder daughter informed him that the six-year-old girl had not come back home. The complainant said he immediately went outside and looked around for his daughter, but in vain. The neighbours were unable to help as well.

The next day (July 28) at around 5:45am, he came to know that the body of a minor girl was lying in a garbage dump near the wall of a school in G-Area market. He went to the spot along with his neighbours and discovered that it was his daughter's body.

'8 children abused daily'

As many as 2,960 major crimes against children were reported in the four provinces, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) in 2020.

According to data released by the NGO Sahil, eight children were abused every day in Pakistan in one form or the other, while 51 per cent of the victims were girls and 49pc boys.

Out of the reported cases, 985 were of sodomy, 787 rape, 89 pornography and child sexual abuse and 80 were of murder after sexual abuse. Cases of abduction, missing children and child marriages were 834, 345 and 119, respectively.