A suspect was arrested on Thursday in the alleged rape and murder of a four-year-old girl in a village in Punjab’s Gujrat district, according to the police.

Per a statement issued by the police, the victim and her seven-year-old brother left their home in Khuhar, situated in Gujrat’s Sarai Alamgir town, to attend tuition on January 5 but she never returned home.

Upon receiving information about the incident, Sarai Alamgir Station House Office (SHO) Shiraz Haider and Superintendent of Police Abid Hussain filed a case against unidentified suspects under Section 363 (punishment for kidnapping) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

Meanwhile, Deputy Superintendent of Police Rai Muneer Ahmed arrived in Khuhar and blocked all the roads in and out of the village, according to the police statement. Upon the arrival of the Gujrat district police officer, a search operation was launched.

The statement said that the victim’s body, stuffed in a sack, was found in an empty plot the next day. Provisions for murder (Section 302) were added to the case, according to a police report dated January 6.

Police canvassed the neighbourhood in which the body was found and interrogated and took DNA samples from potential suspects, according to the statement. These samples, along with DNA samples from the victim’s body, were sent to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) for analysis.

According to the victim’s medical report, dated January 6, the girl had injuries consistent with rape, as well as lacerations across her body. “Final opinion will be given after reports from PFSA,” the report stated. The provisions for rape of a minor (Section 376iii) were subsequently added to the police report.

Following the incident, the victim’s father, in a video statement, had claimed that nobody had been arrested, nor had the DNA report come in. “It has been 10 days since my daughter was murdered,” he said. “So far, the DNA results have not come in and no suspects have been brought forward.

“I request that the report be sent quickly,” he had said.

According to the statement, the DNA report was received by police today and the samples matched one of the suspects questioned on January 6. The statement said the suspect was arrested and confessed to the crime during interrogation.

“Further investigation is underway,” the statement added.

The Punjab Police established Special Sexual Offences Investigation Units (SSOIUs) across the province a day ago, comprising 1,450 specially trained officers, in alignment with the Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) Act.

The dedicated units were established under section 9 of the Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) Act 2021 following the longstanding complaints of defective investigations into rape and other sexual crime cases.

According to data gathered by Sahil, an NGO working on cases of child sexual abuse, the overwhelming majority of abusers are acquaintances or neighbours in communities or family members.

At the same time, the data also shows that institutionally, the highest number of complaints emerge against religious teachers or clerics — more so than police, school teachers, or nuclear family members.