The administrative judge of the anti-terrorism courts on Tuesday remanded a suspect in the custody of the police in the case pertaining to the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl in Karachi.
The judge sent Zakir, alias Antola, on physical remand for five days and ordered the investigating officer to submit the progress report of the case on the next date of hearing. The minor had been found dead near a garbage dump on the morning of July 28, the night after she had gone missing while playing outside her house in the Korangi 5½ area.
The IO requested the court to grant the police Zakir’s custody for two weeks to complete their investigation as well as to collect the previous criminal record of the suspect from the relevant police department.
The officer told the judge that the suspect had admitted to his crime during the initial interrogation, while his DNA sample had also matched with the DNA sample of the victim. The judge, however, allowed the IO to keep the suspect in custody for five days, ordering him to complete all the procedures within that time. The court also ordered a progress report from the police to be filed in the next hearing.
Meanwhile, the IO also filed applications in the court of an East district judicial magistrate, requesting time to record a confessional statement of the suspect as well as to conduct his identification parade.
The victim’s father, Abdul Khalid, who is the complainant in the case, was also present in the courtroom during the hearing. Speaking to the media later, he said the suspect was his neighbour.
He said that on the fateful night, his three daughters had gone into the street at around 9pm after a power breakdown in their area. He added that at around 11pm, his two daughters returned home but the third did not.
“I along with my other neighbours began a search for her but we could not find her until the following morning, when I received a call from someone that a body of a child was lying in a dumping yard along the wall of a school in the area.” Khalid’s eyes became watery while narrating the story. He said the suspect also had two daughters, one of whom was friends with the victim. He added that the victim used to call the suspect “uncle”. “The suspect may have thought that I am a poor person and would stop pursuing my case after some days because no one would listen to me. That is why he targeted my daughter.”