12-year-old girl murdered after rape
The body of the 12-year-old victim was brought to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre in Karachi for an autopsy from a house located in Jacob Lines Area within the limits of the Brigade police station. Initially, it was reported that the girl had committed suicide; however, doctors revealed that the girl had been sexually assaulted and murdered.
According to Karachi Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed, the girl was brought dead at the medico legal section of the JPMC. “Physical findings are strongly suggestive of violent sexual assault and her death occurred due to asphyxia resulting from strangulation,” the police surgeon told The News. “Visceral samples have been collected to rule out intoxication and swabs have been made for semen serology, DNA profiling and cross- matching,” she said. The girl’s family has lodged an FIR with the police.
PHC rejects bail of Dir honour killing suspect
The Peshawar High Court has rejected the bail petition of a man accused of killing his daughter and a man for “honour” in Lower Dir district over three months ago.
Justice Mohammad Naeem Anwar of a single-member bench declared that tentatively, the pima facie evidence showed the suspect was involved in the offence and so the court is not inclined to order the release on bail as the punishment for that offence fell in the restrictive clause of Section 497 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The FIR of honour killings was registered by the Timergara police station in Lower Dir district on Aug 23, 2022, under the Pakistan Penal Code’s sections 302 (intentional murder) and 311 (mischief on earth). The case was registered by the police station’s SHO on the information provided by Kausar Begum, the wife of the deceased man.
The woman had informed the police that her husband was invited by one of his relatives, Noor Mohammad, who was also a co-accused in the case, to his house. She added that when she and her husband reached that house, they found Noor Mohammad as well as his children and father-in-law Akhtar Khan (petitioner) to be present there.
According to the woman, her husband sat with Noor Mohammad, while she was present there with the deceased woman, the co-accused’s wife and the petitioner’s daughter. She alleged that suddenly, Noor Mohammad began spraying the male accused with bullets, whereas Mr Akhtar fired at his daughter killing both on the spot.
The woman claimed that the two were killed by the accused for suspecting them of having extramarital relations. The bench observed that the petitioner was directly named in the report with the specific role of effective firing at his daughter that killed her instantly.
It added that prima facie, the version of the prosecution was supported by the report of postmortem performed on the woman deceased. Earlier, the bail petition of the suspect was rejected by Lower Dir additional district and sessions judge Nusrat Naz, who observed that the matter was a case of gender-based offence, so Section 311 of the Pakistan Penal Code had been inserted into the case against the petitioner.
