KARACHI: Police and doctors on Tuesday said that a six-year-old girl and her two-year-old brother, whose bodies were recovered along with their mother’s from a drain near their home in Mauripur on June 29, were subjected to a sexual assault before being strangled.

The bodies of a missing 25-year-old woman, her six-year-old daughter and two-year old son were found in a drain close to their home in Sher Muhammad Village within the jurisdiction of Mauripur police on Saturday, June 29.

Police Surgeon Summaiya Syed told Dawn on Tuesday that the post-mortem examination ‘confirmed’ that both the minor girl and her brother were raped, adding that the girl was subjected to a ‘brutal’ sexual assault.

She said that they had not ruled out the possibility of rape with their mother till the receipt of chemical reports, etc.

Regarding the possible cause of their death, the police surgeon said it was not their natural death but the exact cause of death had been reserved till receipts of reports.

DIG-South Syed Asad Raza told Dawn their initial findings also suggested that the victims were sexually assaulted and killed before being dumped in the drain.

He said that the Mauripur police had registered a murder case against unknown persons on the complaint of the deceased woman’s husband and were waiting for the final report of the doctors.

The complainant told the police that his wife and two children went out of the home to meet Mehran Bibi for ‘religious and spiritual treatment’ on June 28 but disappeared for more than 24 hours and found dead inside a drain.

However, the DIG said the couple had been married for seven years but it appeared that the woman’s husband was not ‘interested’ in pursuing the murder case of his wife and children seriously.

It seemed that he was ‘aware’ of something but was hiding it from the investigators. Thus, the police were interrogating him, his cousin and other relatives to get clues about the real culprits but so far, no one had been formally arrested.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2024