KARACHI: A judicial magistrate on Thursday handed over a 20-year-old man accused of sexually assaulting and murdering a six-year-old boy to police on a five-day physical remand.

The child’s body had been found in an empty plot near Karachi’s Lea Market on the night of July 7, a day after he went missing. Police said that although doctors had collected samples to ascertain sexual assault, the arrested suspect had confessed during the initial probe to kidnapping the boy for that purpose.

Napier police presented the suspect at City Courts on Thursday under tight security, with his face covered.

The investigation officer (IO) requested a 14-day physical remand, seeking time to interrogate the suspect to arrest his accomplices.

The IO also informed the court that a provision related to rape had been added to the case.

Subsequently, the court sent the suspect on a five-day physical remand and directed the IO to produce him at the next hearing along with a progress report.

On the complaint of the boy’s father, the Napier police had initially registered a first information report (FIR) under Section 3 (trafficking in persons) of the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act of 2018 and 364-A (kidnapping or abducting a person under the age of fourteen) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

According to Deputy Inspector General (DIG) South Syed Asad Raza, after allegedly killing the boy, the suspect had kept the body on the rooftop of his house.

It was later thrown from the third floor into an empty plot on Tuesday night, wrapped in a gunny bag, which residents noticed. They opened the bag and informed the police, who rushed to the area.

In the meantime, some residents brought the suspect out from his residence and beat him before the police arrived to take him into custody.

DIG Raza said the suspect was a neighbour of the victim who originally hailed from Lahore.

Police surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed, at the time, said that the body was “decomposed” and there were “multiple bone injuries”. “All samples have been collected for sexual violence and chemical analysis,” she said, adding that the cause of death was “reserved”.