HYDERABAD, May 24: A-Section police Latifabad have arrested a man on suspicion that he was involved in the strangling of a minor girl.

The suspect was arrested following a brief encounter near Rajputana hospital late on Friday, police claimed.

The medical examination report of the girl, Zainab, 8, daughter of Shafqat Rajput, was still awaited.

Police claimed that the accused, Syed Asif Ali Shah, alias Acchay Mian son of Syed Qaim Ali Shah, a resident of Amani Shah colony, was waiting for someone to meet near Rajputana hospital in the limits of Baldia police station when the encounter occurred.

SHO police station A-section Salman Farooqui claimed that the man, in fact, was waiting for a ‘police informer’ who had been planted by police to negotiate him arrest so that he could surrender but when the police reached there he challenged police.

It led to an exchange of fire and he received bullet injuries on his left leg.

He has been taken to hospital and now his condition is out of danger, SHO said.

He added that the informer had trapped him that he had approached some of his contacts in police and that the matter would be hushed up.

Two separate cases under Sections 353 PPC (police encounter) and 324 Qisas and Diyat and 13-D of Arms Ordinance have been lodged against him at Baldia police station, he said.

The case is now being investigated by investigation wing but the accused was arrested by operations wing of A-section police.

The body of the girl stuffed in a gunny bag, was recovered by the people of the area in Amani Shah graveyard in Latifabad on Thursday.

Local people suspect that the eight-year-old girl was criminally assaulted before being killed.