By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: Police have taken DNA samples from 12 suspects, including relatives of the victim, as they investigate the rape and murder of a three-year-old girl whose body was found stuffed in a sack outside her home in Karachi, officials said on Thursday.
The killing of Kulsoom Mohammed Qasim in the Muslimabad Colony neighbourhood of Quaidabad has shocked the city and drawn the attention of senior government officials, coming days after a separate child rape and murder in Punjab province.
Investigators said they were focusing on three close relatives of the child as the prime suspects and were awaiting DNA results from a laboratory at the University of Karachi before making arrests.
Kulsoom left her home on Tuesday afternoon to play outside and failed to return. Her family launched a search after she was still missing by late afternoon. That evening, her grandfather, returning home after Maghrib prayers at a nearby mosque, noticed a gunny sack lying at the gate to their street near Mustafa Masjid. When he opened it, he found his granddaughter’s body inside.
The corpse was taken to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where doctors conducted a post-mortem examination and collected forensic swabs.
Police surgeon Dr. Summaiya Syed, who led a team of doctors that collected the DNA samples, said physical evidence was “strongly suggestive of violent rape” and that there were “multiple marks of resistance on the body.” The cause of death was formally reserved pending laboratory reports.
Syed described it as among the most disturbing cases in her professional experience. “All rape-murder cases of children are horrific, but some are more terrible than the others. This was one of them. Really disturbing.”
Malir Senior Superintendent of Police (Investigation) Majida Perveen Halepota confirmed on Thursday that DNA samples had been collected from suspects and that police were awaiting laboratory results for possible matches. A separate officer on the investigation team said the samples had been sent to the University of Karachi and results were expected shortly.
The officer said the investigation team was “certain” the perpetrator or perpetrators lived in the same neighbourhood as the victim. Based on intelligence from the Special Branch and local informants, three individuals described as close relatives of Kulsoom were under particular scrutiny, though the officer said any decision to formally detain them for interrogation would depend on the DNA findings.
Sindh Inspector General of Police Javed Alam Odho formed a high-level committee led by the Deputy Inspector General of Karachi’s East Zone to oversee what he described as a transparent investigation. “People involved in this horrific incident do not deserve any leniency and they will be taken to task,” Odho said.
Malir SSP Dr. Abdul Khaliq Pirzada visited Muslimabad Colony on Wednesday to meet with the victim’s family and assured them arrests would follow. Sindh Home Minister Ziaul Hasan Lanjar also took notice of the case and directed police to brief him on developments until the perpetrators were in custody.
A case has been registered at the Quaidabad police station on the complaint of Kulsoom’s father against unknown persons under sections of the Pakistan Penal Code covering premeditated murder, causing disappearance of evidence, rape, unnatural offences, kidnapping and common intention.
The killing comes after a similar case in Sargodha, in Punjab province, where police said they arrested four suspects in the rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl whose body was found in a shop. The prime suspect in that case was subsequently killed in what police described as an armed encounter with a Crime Control Department team after he allegedly escaped from custody.
Child sexual violence remains widespread in Pakistan. Rights groups and campaigners have repeatedly called for faster prosecution of perpetrators and more robust legal protections for minors.
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