Two girls arrested as murder case of child resolved

MARDAN: Police have resolved a blind murder case of a minor girl and arrested two sisters allegedly involved in her murder, a senior police officer said.

Addressing a news conference on Monday, District Police Officer (DPO) Mohammad Sajjad Khan said that on August 11, Kifayatullah, a resident of Janbaz Nari, reported that her four-year-old granddaughter Iqra had gone missing in the Saddar Police Station limits.

He said that on August 15, her body was recovered from the field located near her house. The DPO said that on the directive of Regional Police Officer (RPO) Mohammad Ali Khan, a joint investigation team (JIT) was formed to investigate the case. He added that during the investigation, the team collected blood samples of 330 people of Janbaz Nari, Qudrat Killay and Chato Killay.

He added that mobile data of 1600 mobile phone numbers was also checked but during the probe, a minor girl identified as Haleema unveiled the secret. Haleema told police that her sisters Fatima (18) and Nadia (13), daughters of Hassan Raheem alias Tekadar, had allegedly killed the minor girl.

The police arrested both the sisters and during the interrogation, the arrested girls told police that on the day of the incident, Shazia, mother of the deceased minor girl, had exchanged harsh words with them. They said that after this incident, they beat Iqra with a sharp tool and left her in a field in an injured condition.

The DPO said the police also recovered the tool used in her murder. Meanwhile, a doctor of Mardan Medical Complex (MMC) stated in the post-mortem report of Iqra that she had also been allegedly raped before her murder. However, the DPO rejected the report and said that the minor wasn’t molested. He added that JIT sent the samples to the forensic laboratory, which made it clear that the minor wasn’t raped.