KARACHI: Police on Monday claimed to have ‘solved’ the kidnapping, rape and murder case of a six-year-old girl reported in Korangi on July 26 as the DNA samples of the held suspect matched with those of the victim.

“An investigation team on the basis of evidences arrested a suspect who is neighbour of the victim and sent his DNA samples to a laboratory at the University of Karachi, which have been matched with the DNA samples of the minor girl,” declared East Zone DIG Saqib Ismail Memon while announcing the arrest.

Speaking at a press conference at his office, the senior officer added that the held suspect had also ‘confessed’ to the crime.

He revealed that Zaman Town SHO and other police officers had been removed for not taking the girl’s missing report seriously and adopting “undesirable attitude” towards her parents.

The grief-stricken father of the victim said that his daughter had left this world, but he did not want such incident to happen to any other child.

Appreciating the police’s performance for solving his daughter’s case, he said that if the police continued to work like that, such tragic incidents could be prevented.

The DIG recalled that the girl had gone missing from outside her home in Korangi area on July 26 while playing with children.

The parents reported her missing to the Zaman Town police station. Next day, at around 6am, Madadgar-15 police received information that an unknown girl’s body was lying on a garbage dump near Hussaini Imambargah. Landhi-Korangi SP Shah Nawaz Chachar reached the spot.

However, DIG Memon admitted that the police subjected the parents to “undesirable attitude”, did not take the girl’s missing seriously and also failed to take timely action. For that attitude, the Zaman Town SHO and duty officer were suspended, he added.

“If the police had demonstrated seriousness in the case, things might not have gone to such an extent,” he observed

He said a dedicated team was set up which launched an investigation into the incident on professional basis as geofencing was carried out while a list of all rickshaw drivers was prepared with help of witnesses as the body was thrown from a rickshaw.

The arrested suspect is familiar with the girl’s family for a long time and his children also played with the victim. Taking advantage of the familiarity and power loadshedding in the area, he committed the crime.

The DIG pointed out that Zainab Alert Application had provided much help to the police in the cases of missing children.

Hashish seized from ambulance

Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) and police on Monday jointly carried out an intelligence-based action in Railway Colony, Keamari, and detained two suspects, Rizwan Ahmed and M. Sohail.

The suspects had brought hashish from Sachal Goth in an ambulance of ‘Khadmain Foundation’.

The paramilitary spokesperson said that 12kg hashish and ambulance (hi-roof) were seized from their custody.

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2021