The Punjab Police on Wednesday said they arrested a man suspected of molesting a minor girl in Multan district after a video of the incident went viral online.

The video of the incident did the rounds on social media earlier in the week and generated intense criticism with calls for the suspect to be arrested, particularly as it came after the police arrested a man after footage showing him allegedly molesting a minor girl in Kasur district also went viral online.

A statement issued by the Multan Crime Control Department (CCD) today said: “The man who attempted to sexually assault a girl was arrested in an ‘injured’ condition.”

The incident occurred on July 15 in Mustafa Colony, Rashidabad area, with the limits of Bahauddin Zakaria Police Station when “an unknown person tried to sexually assault a girl in the street and fled from the scene”, according to the statement.

A case was registered under Section 377B (unnatural offences with a minor) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) at the BZ Police Station and the investigation of the case was handed over to the CCD.

The statement said the police received a tip-off about the suspect’s whereabouts and conducted a raid at an undisclosed location to arrest him.

“The suspect attempting to evade arrest opened fire on the police team and in a hurry, accidentally fired and injured himself,” the statement said, adding that he was taken to Nishtar Hospital for medical treatment.

“Police identified him through the Criminal Record Office that he was the suspect who molested the minor girl,” the statement added.

It added that the suspect’s criminal record revealed that he was nominated in a case for killing his brother in 2023. The case was registered under Section 302 (punishment for murder) at the BZ Police Station.

As many as 3,364 child abuse cases were reported from across the country last year, 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 objective 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,” the report stated.

In January 2018, police recovered the body of six-year-old Zainab Amin from a heap of trash in Kasur, five days after she went missing. A postmortem examination suggested that she may have been raped before she was strangled to death.

The case sparked outrage across the nation and forced the government into action in finding the serial rapist and killer. The culprit, identified as Imran Ali, was convicted of the rape and murder case and sentenced to death. He was hanged to death in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Central Jail on Oct 17, 2018.

More than two years after the Zainab case, the National Assembly passed the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Bill, 2019 that seeks to expedite investigation and punishment for perpetrators of child abuse.