Thousands rally in Pakistan for 8-year-old rape victim

Thousands of Pakistanis rallied on Thursday to seek justice for an eight-year-old girl, who was raped, murdered and her body left on a rubbish tip.

Young students from schools, colleges and universities were joined by the civil society activists and lawyers at protests against the crime in the city of Kasur in the central province of Punjab.

Police found the body of the girl on the rubbish tip in the middle of the city on Tuesday, a week after she was kidnapped, local Police Chief Zulfikar Ahmed said.

Ahmed said an autopsy on Wednesday suggested the girl was raped before being strangled to death at least six days ago.

Protests that erupted in the city on Wednesday continued for the second day as an angry mob ransacked a hospital and the private residence of a local member of parliament, police official Iftikhar Ahmed said.

Students called for the death of the perpetrator at rallies from the southern metropolis of Karachi to the north-western city of Peshawar.

“We want the culprit to be hanged publicly so that no one dares commit such a crime in the future,” a mother at the protest in Peshawar told Dunya Television.

He said there have been a dozen similar incidents in Kasur in the past in which minors were kidnapped, raped and killed, Iftikhar.

He said the DNA testing of the latest victim and in previous cases suggested that a “lunatic serial killer” was behind almost all of the crimes.
FAT/SH