Justice done to killer of Zainab, seven other girls

LAHORE: The convict in minor Zainab and seven other girls’ murder-cum-rape case was executed at Kot Lakhpat jail on Wednesday.

The grandson of Tara Masih, who had hanged former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, executed the accused, Imran, whose body was later handed over to his family and transported to his hometown amid tight security.

According to the prevalent law, the convict was brought to the gallows at around 5:30 am. Jail administration, medical officer and two special magistrates were present there. Zainab’s father Amin Ansari and her uncle Adnan had also reached the jail at around 5 am.

The victim father said the accused had no regrets on his face at the time of execution. After execution, he remained hanged in the gallows for half an hour. Ansari added such kind of beasts should be hanged like this to avert such incidents in future. He also said that the families of other victim girls had not turned up there. He added that he and his wife are still in the state of shock and trauma.

Imran was convicted in February after being identified through DNA tests and was sentenced to death on one count, 25 years of imprisonment on two counts. In other cases, Imran was awarded death sentence on four counts and life imprisonment on one count.

Zainab was kidnapped on January 4 this year from near her aunt’s house in Kasur. Her body was recovered from a heap of garbage near her house five days later. The victim’s family and locals launched violent protests in which two people were also killed by police outside the DPO office.

The police later collected DNA samples of 1,187 people from January 12 to January 23 to trace out the accused person. On January 23, the police arrested Imran, a neighbour of Zainab, as his DNA matched not only with the DNA samples collected from the body of Zainab but also to at least seven other victims.

On February 10, the court handed over copies of the challan to the accused person’s counsel in a hearing which was held in Kot Lakhpat Jail. February 12 was fixed for framing of charges. On February 12, the accused Imran pleaded non-guilty after which the court indicted him in the case and started regular trial proceedings. However, on the next day, Imran confessed to raping and killing Ayesha Asif, 7, on January 7, 2017; Eman Fatima, 7, on February 24, 2017; Noor Fatima, 7, on April 11 2017; Laiba Saleem, 7, on July 8, 2017; Zainab Amin, 7, on January 4, 2018, and others.