9-year-old girl raped, murdered | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

9-year-old girl raped, murdered

By: Ashraf Javed

LAHORE — A 9-year-old girl was found dead after being raped by unidentified kidnappers, a day after the City police refused of registering her kidnapping case here in Shadbagh area, police sources said on Thursday.

Police investigators said that unidentified kidnappers strangled Eesha Hussain to death after committing gang-rape in the densely populated Shadbagh area.

“There were severe torture marks on the private parts of the body. The girl was lying naked and apparently, it seemed that she fell prey to some beasts,” eyewitnesses said, adding, the police reached the spot one hour late after they spotted the dead body and contacted the police.

Resident of Gundi Bomby area, Eesha Hussain was lying dead inside a gowdown situated a few hundreds meter away from her residence as the police reached the spot. One of the workers at the godown spotted her “naked dead body” with blood and torture marks on early Thursday and contacted the police by phone. The police have shifted the body to the morgue for autopsy and are investigating with no arrest made so far.

Najma Bibi, mother of the deceased, told reporters outside the Dead House that Eesha left her residence on Wednesday afternoon to fetch some edibles from a nearby shop but did not return.

The deceased family desperately searched her in the entire locality but to no avail. Later, Aashiq Hussain reached the Shadbagh police station and appealed to the police for registration of kidnapping case and recovery of her daughter. “But, the policemen did not bother to pay heed to my repeated requests,” her father said.

Police sources said that unidentified gangsters kidnapped the girl and took her to some unknown location, where they raped her one by one. After committing rape, the abductors strangled the girl to death and fled away after throwing her naked body in the dilapidated godown situated in the same locality. “The policemen are responsible for the gruesome killing. Had they responded quickly and responsibly, the life of Eesha could have been saved,” Shama Bibi, a close relative of the girl said while tears were rolling down from her cheeks. A police investigator, requesting his name not to be mentioned, said that it was yet to be established whether the girl was raped by one killer or it was a case of murder after gang-rape.

According to the police sources, there was no let-up in the incidents of kidnapping for ransom, abductions and torture killings here in the City despite the incumbent Capital City Police Officer Ahmed Raza Tahir had warned gangsters of staging fake police encounters to close their chapters.

It is worth mentioning here that as per the police formula recently introduced by the CCPO in Lahore, the police are ready to stage encounters to finish the episode of four types of hardened criminals. “There is zero tolerance for those found involved in rape-cum-murder, rape during house robbery, killings of policemen and murder of victims after kidnapping for ransom,” a police official claimed.

But when asked whether staging fake police encounters is the only option available with the policemen to downgrade worsening crime rate in town, he did not respond stating, it was up to the top police command to decide the fate of the gangsters.

City police have killed at least six gangsters in three fake police encounters since the CCPO took the charge of his new office, about one and half-month ago.

Police sources revealed that the top cops are focusing on police encounters to please the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and to remain in the media spotlight instead of initiating police reforms to end the notorious Thana culture.

Source: The Nation

Date:6/3/2011