‘One More Zainab’: Two-year-old Girl was Found Dead after Being Raped and Excruciated in Charsadda

‘Justice for Zainab’ was trending on Twitter once again. This time not for the six-year-old girl Zainab who was raped and then killed in Kasur, but for a 24 months old minor girl, also named Zainab. 

A two-year-old girl, named Zainab, was found dead in the trash in the Jabba Korona area in the outskirts of Daudzai police station of Peshawar. 

On Thursday, Sanaullah Abbasi, Inspector General of Police, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while refusing to share much as it would affect the interrogation, said that suspects involved in the rape and murder of the two-year-old are under police custody and being questioned. 

Earlier the Charsadda police stated that the girl appears to have been raped and abused physically before she was killed. 

According to the residents, the minor was playing with other kids in front of her house in Sheikh KallayQilla on Tuesday when she went missing. 

The Prang police, on Wednesday, received information that a minor’s dead body was found lying in Jabba Korona area. The body was then recovered and sent to the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar for examination by Daudzai and Prang police. 

Initially, a first information report (FIR) was registered in the Prang police station, Charsadda, as per the complaint of the minor’s father for her daughter’s abduction against anonymous kidnappers, said District Police Officer (DPO) Charsadda Mohammad Shoaib Khan. 

After the dead body was found, the police added section 302 (charges for murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC)to the FIR, said the DPO. 

He said that initial investigation revealed that the torture marks on the body suggest that the minor was sexually assaulted before being murdered, added Khan. 

IGP Abbasi said that DHQ hospital had in words confirmed that the assault was done to the minor but a formal postmortem report is still awaited. 

On the other side, the father of the minor said that they did not have any hostility with anyone. He asked the government to catch the criminals soon and give them the cruelest of punishment, lamenting that today it is his daughter but tomorrow can be someone else’s. 

Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan, while taking notice of the incident, instructed the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr SanaullahAbbasi and others having the authority to arrest the culprits as soon as possible. 

He called the incident as heart-rending and said that an example should be made out of it. He said that the culprits would not be able to get out of this and the complete justice will be served to the victim’s family. 

IGP Abbasi also visited the minor’s family and guaranteed the arrest of the culprits to them. Later, while addressing the media, he said that DPO was personally looking into the case.