KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Tuesday sentenced a serial child rapist to death in one more case pertaining to sexually assaulting a minor girl in 2017.

Accused Amjad Ali alias Zakir has been charged with kidnapping and raping five children between 2015 and 2018 in different parts of Malir district.

He was arrested in another case and when his DNA sample was sent to a lab it was positively matched with those obtained in five unsolved rape cases. Earlier this month, the same ATC sentenced him to capital punishment in an identical case.

On Tuesday, the judge of ATC-X, who conducted the trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, found him guilty of sexually assaulting the minor victim within the jurisdiction of Sukkan police station five years ago.

Prosecution says convict is facing trial in three more rape cases

The court handed down death sentence but ruled that it’s subject to confirmation by the Sindh High Court. The judge directed its office to send the record of proceedings of the case to the SHC for confirmation of the death sentence or otherwise.

The investigating officer, DSP Ali Hassan Shaikh, had stated in the final charge sheet that the victim’s mother, who’s a complainant in the case, used to work in a factory and lived in flats near the Labour Square area along with two minor daughters and a niece.

He further mentioned that on the day of the incident, the accused, after conducting his own recce, entered the complainant’s house on the pretext of taking the premises on rent. He locked up two other minor girls in one room and subjected the victim, who then aged between four and five years, to a sexual assault and escaped.

According to the prosecution, the convict is a serial rapist, who molested minor children. He has been handed down death sentence by the same court on Nov 10, while three identical cases are pending trial against him.

The IO, DSP Shaikh, said that the accused was arrested while trying to kidnap a minor girl with an intention to commit rape in the Sukkan area. Although the child was not subjected to a sexual assault, police on “suspicion” obtained a DNA sample and sent it to a laboratory for matching with those drawn from five minor girls who had been subjected to a sexual assault but their cases remained unsolved.

The report had dramatically revealed that the suspect’s sample had matched with those of the five children and the prosecution booked and formally arrested him in the five cases.

The cases were registered under Sections 363 (punishment for kidnapping) and 376 (punishment for rape) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 at the Sukkan, Shah Latif Town and Quaidabad police stations.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2022