Body of missing five-year-old girl recovered in KP’s Haripur: police

PESHAWAR: Police and rescue officials on Monday night recovered the body of a girl who had gone missing from outside her home in a semi-urban area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Haripur district two weeks ago.

According to rescue and medical sources, the body was buried after an autopsy. The detailed post-mortem report was awaited.

District Headquarters Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Munawar Afridi said the board of female doctors that conducted the autopsy was still compiling the post-mortem report.

“It would therefore be premature to determine the nature of injuries sustained by the victim or the exact cause of her death,” he told Dawn.

Speaking to the media at a press conference in Haripur on Tuesday, District Police Officer (DPO) Shafiullah Gandapur said the five-year-old went missing from outside her home at around 6pm on Aug 10.

Police initially began an inquiry under Section 156(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which deals with investigations into cognisable cases, and formally registered a first information report (FIR) under Section 364-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), relating to kidnapping or abduction with intent to murder, on Aug 12.

The move followed the collection of CCTV footage and geofencing of the area, according to police.

The DPO said police had initially arrested three suspects, one of whom recorded a confessional statement before a duty magistrate on Saturday.

According to the statement, four suspects were involved in abducting the girl and taking her to an area near Model Town, where the suspect and another accused allegedly sexually assaulted her.

According to Gandapur, none of the three suspects initially arrested by police disclosed where they had left the victim after the assault. However, during a search of the area, police obtained CCTV footage from another house, which helped them trace a fourth suspect.

Acting on information provided by the fourth suspect, police recovered the five-year-old’s body from an unused well at a warehouse near one of the link roads leading to Haripur University, the DPO said.

He said the suspect had thrown the victim into the well after allegedly raping her and had attempted to conceal the body with foliage.

The DPO added doctors had collected body samples for DNA and forensic analysis.

Responding to a question, he described the case as “sensitive and complex” and said a local team of investigators, including Superintendent of Police (SP) Security Samina Zafar and women officers from the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) and IT wings, had diligently traced the suspects and recovered the body.

Three of the suspects had been sent to prison on judicial remand, while the fourth was being interrogated to gather further evidence and bring all those involved to justice, he said.

“We have not closed the investigation as we expect some more details,” he added.

KP Chief Minister Muhammad Sohail Afridi also took notice of the incident and expressed deep sorrow and strong condemnation in a statement on Tuesday. He directed that a special investigation team be formed to probe the matter.

He termed the incident “sad and heartbreaking”, adding that those responsible would be given “the strictest punishment according to the law”.

Afridi expressed his sympathies and condolences to the girl’s family, saying, “Such heinous crimes against children will not be tolerated under any circumstances.”

Workers of different political parties and civil society organisations had blocked Haripur’s GT Road on Sunday to protest the delay in the recovery of the girl, expressing a lack of confidence in the investigation.