Girl ‘rape, murder’ case takes new turn | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Girl ‘rape, murder’ case takes new turn

By Imran Ayub

KARACHI: Police have finally traced the family of a 20-year-old girl whose remains were exhumed from an abandoned Korangi house about four years after her alleged rape and murder.

Two suspects arrested for possessing illicit weapons had told interrogators that they were also involved in the rape and murder of a 20-year-old girl whom they had buried in an abandoned house in Korangi in 2006.

Later, the remains were exhumed by the police on information provided by the arrested suspects.

After having investigated the case for nearly two weeks, the Shah Latif police found that the two suspects still kept a few facts secret.

“Initially, the prime suspect among the two told the police that he became friends with the victim over the phone and she, unbeknownst to her family, came to Karachi from Dera Ghazi Khan to get married,” said Sub-Inspector Irshad Baloch, the investigation officer of the case.

“The police relied on his statement but found no clue in D.G. Khan when they attempted to trace the victim’s family there. This raised doubts about the exact hometown of the victim.”

Finally, he said, the police were approached by a Korangi family that came to know about the incident through the media. The family members were not only related to the victim girl but also knew one of the arrested suspects, he added.

“Actually, the girl hailed from Pattoki in Kasur but was living in Korangi’s Zia Colony after marrying a man, Abdur Raheem, who was her first cousin,” said the IO.

“The prime suspect, with the help of his accomplice, kidnapped the girl, raped her for a few days and finally killed and buried her.”

According to the fresh police findings, the victim’s husband and the prime suspect were family friends and this made their task of trapping the girl a little easier.

The family told the investigators that they recognised one of the suspects and he was a friend of the husband of one of the girls missing in their family.

“When this information was used in the interrogation of the suspects, they came up with the story that seems true and led us to trace the family links of the victim girl,” said Sub-Inspector Rao Muhammad Muneer, who arrested the suspects and found the grave of the girl in the house.

The officer was also the complainant of the FIR (481/2010) registered by the Shah Latif police station under Sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code against the two suspects.

The police through the relatives of the victim girl approached her parents – Bilal Ahmed and Mahmooda Begum – who live in Kasur.

The victim was the eldest among their five children. The parents also recorded their statements and the police took samples to carry out DNA tests to match with those from the victim’s remains.

“We as well as the parents of the victim are sure that the deceased girl was their daughter,” said Farooq Awan, Investigation SSP of the Bin Qasim Town. “Their son-in-law, Abdur Raheem, told them that their daughter had eloped. He is now untraceable.”

The SSP said that it would take a few days to get the DNA report of the samples.
Source: Dawn
Date:7/15/2010