The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police said on Saturday they had arrested a suspect after a 13-year-old maid was allegedly raped and murdered in Abbottabad last night.

Azam Mir Afzal, public relations officer (PRO) for the Abbottabad district police officer (DPO), told Dawn.com today that the victim was working as a maid in the house where she was allegedly raped and murdered. “The house owner has been arrested, and further investigation into the case is underway,” the PRO said.

“The incident took place in Habibullah Colony, within the limits of Mirpur Police Station,” the PRO said. “According to the initial reports, the victim’s body was brought to the hospital last night, where doctors examined it and found evidence of torture and rape.”

Afzal added that a postmortem was conducted at Ayub Medical Complex in Abbottabad.

According to the initial investigation, the victim’s mother was separated from her husband for the past 12 years and was living in Mansehra, Afzal noted. “The girl had been working as a household maid for a long time,” Afzal said.

The police registered a first information report (FIR) at Mirpur Police Station today at the complaint of the victim’s father under Sections 302 (punishment for murder) and 376 (punishment for rape) of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 53 (sexual abuse) of the KP Child Protection Act.

As many as 3,364 child abuse cases were reported from across all provinces, Islamabad Capital Territory, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan in 2024, according to a civil society report.

The report Cruel Numbers 2024 by Sahil was prepared based on data collected from 81 national and regional newspapers across the country.

“The objectives of the report is to present the data on the situation regarding violence against children (up to 18 years) in cases of sexual abuse, abduction/kidnapping, missing children, and child marriages.

“Other goals are to contribute to existing information on Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) in Pakistan and to contribute towards spreading awareness and information about different forms of CSA to all segments of society,” said Sahil.