KOHAT: The Ulema Committee comprising leading religious scholars and political leaders from all five districts of Kohat division have expressed dissatisfaction with the police investigation into the killing of a four-year-old girl and threatened to march on Islamabad and demonstrate outside the prime minister’s Banigala house.

They said the police had failed to trace culprits even one week after the girl’s murder.

The Ulema Committee headed by Maulana Sharifullah met here on Thursday and said no action had been taken against police officials for ‘criminal negligence’ and delay in the completion of investigation into the killing.

Maulana Sharifullah said the district police officer, deputy commissioner and medical superintendent of the hospital were equally responsible for the killing and delay in the girl’s postmortem.

He demanded exemplary punishment for culprits.

The Ulema Committee members said they met SP (investigations) Inayatullah many times whose promises for the early arrest of culprits turned out to be false.

The district police officer said the woman, who was spotted in CCTV footage with the girl, was the main accused in the case.

He said the woman had been taken into the custody of Kohat Bureau of Investigation but hadn’t been nominated in the FIR yet.

Meanwhile, the DNA report sent to Islamabad by the police revealed that the girl was tortured and strangled and not molested.

The woman doctors had suspected in the postmortem report that the girl was molested before being killed.

Also in the day, former district nazim Gohar Saifullah Khan and former Chakar Kot nazim Mohammad Shakir announced a reward of Rs1 million for the police over the arrest of those involved in the killing of four children in the district.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2021