Surge in attacks on children: Four-year child tortured, murdered in Lakki Marwat

PESHAWAR: A four-year old child was brutally murdered in the southern Lakki Marwat district on Tuesday amid a sudden surge in attacks on children since the kidnapping and killing of Zainab in Kasur.

The locals of Braggi village in Lakki Marwat, close to the boundary with the tribal areas, found the body of four-year old Rohail in the fields. There were signs of torture on his body. The medico-legal report mentioned strangulation, probably through a rope, as the cause of the death.

Police officials said there were no signs of sexual violence on the body of Rohail.

“A special team headed by the District Police Officer Lakki Marwat Arif Shahbaz Wazir has been constituted to identity and arrest the killer,” a police official told The News.

The boy went missing on January 19 from his house in Braggi while the family approached the local police on January 20, officials said. As the police were searching for the missing child, his body was recovered from the fields the day the missing of Rohail was reported to the cops, officials said.

“The medical examination of the body was done within 20 minutes. There are no signs of sexual violence on the body. The culprit has almost been identified and will be arrested soon,” DPO Lakki Marwat Arif Shahbaz told The News.

He said that accused had some issue with the father of the murdered kid. “I and all the officers concerned are in Braggi village since the recovery of the body of Rohail,” said the DPO.

According to the locals, Braggi is a small village of Lakki Marwat sited close to Fata. Police along with the Elite Force and policewomen are searching houses in the vicinity to find the accused as he disappeared since the murder of Rohail.

Many on Tuesday shared the picture of young Rohail on the social media, demanding early arrest of the killers and seeking steps to bring to an end the kidnapping, sexually assault and killing of minors.

“Just saw the mutilated, contorted, broken, brutally strangled body of a tiny angel Rohail. Huge marks as big as his little fists bruising his neck. Keep the pressure on for reforms! For Justice and consequences!” tweeted Nadia Jamil, an artiste who has been speaking for the rights of children since and before the killing of Zainab in Kasur.

Meanwhile, a transgender from Peshawar has approached the Gulbahar Police Station with the complaint that she was picked up and raped by around nine persons on Monday.

The activists working for the rights of transgenders complained that the police were not registering the case when the victim approached the Gulbahar Police Station.