The meeting of Senate Standing Committee on Interior was held in Islamabad under the chair of former interior minister and Senator Rehman Malik. DIG investigation briefed about the current status of Zainab murder case.
ISLAMABAD, (Pakistan Point News - 22nd Jan, 2018) : The meeting of Senate Standing Committee on Interior was held in Islamabad under the chair of former interior minister and Senator Rehman Malik. DIG investigation briefed about the current status of Zainab murder case. The meeting has approved the resolution for the new law related to children rape and murder case. The resolution empathized that murderers of children should be hanged publicly, while police has been asked to establish special cell to investigate the cases, related to children.
During the meeting, Father of Zainab also gave briefing and told the committee about the current status of the case. He told that his daughter was disappeared at 4 pm, while the police was informed at around 8pm. DIG Investigation Abu Bakar Khudabukhsh also appeared before Senate Standing Committee of Interior to brief the committee on Zainab Murder case. DIG Investigation informed the committee that DNA of 696 suspects had been taken since November 2017 and 692 people investigated in cases related to child rape and murder.
He told the committee that the results of those DNA tests still remained elusive. He said that 11 similar incidents had happened from 2015 till the time of briefing. Based on those investigations, he claimed that the culprit in 6 incidents was the same person and the ages of those girls were between 5 to 10 years. Since July 2017, Asma, Laiba, Tehmina, Noor Fatima, Emaan Fatima and Sana have become the victims of rape and murder. DIG Investigation failed to give any assurances as to the capture of the culprits, saying that could take days or even months.
He said that the police was doing all in its capacity to apprehend the culprits at the earliest.Zainab’s mother, becoming the voice of all the affected mothers, demanded that the culprits be arrested as soon as possible and brought to mothers’ court. She held the police responsible for failing to curb the murders. The committee suggested amending Pakistan Penal Code to include the punishment of public hanging of pedophiles and child murderers.
Earlier, the meeting received separate briefings from officials of law enforcement agencies of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday on incidents of rape and murder of minor girls in Kasur and Mardan. Initially, the committee meeting was convened only for a briefing “on the incident of rape and murder of eight-year-old Zainab in Kasur (Punjab)” and to take up four different bills, including the Protection of the Rights of the Transgender Persons Bill and the Miscarriage of Justice (Compensation) Bill.
But the Senate Secretariat issued a new agenda on Friday, excluding all the four bills, and including a briefing on the incident of rape and murder of four-year-old Asma in Mardan, KP.The country has been in the grip of shock after the recovery of the body of eight-year-old Zainab Amin from a garbage heap in Kasur on Jan 9. Zainab was kidnapped from her neighbourhood on Jan 4 when her parents were in Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah. Her autopsy report suggested that she was raped and later murdered.
The prime suspect in the case, however, remains at large despite the provincial administration and police forming multiple committees and several agencies working on the case. The National Assembly has also constituted a 10-member special committee through a resolution to look into child abuse cases to curb such crimes by making full use of legal remedies, effective investigation and speedy prosecution. The committee has been given one month to come up with its recommendations.
The multi-party committee comprises Talal Chaudhry, Marriyum Aurangzeb, Zahid Hamid, Shaista Pervaiz, Shahida Akhtar Ali, Romina Khurshid, Azra Fazl Pechuho, Muhammad Khan, Kihwar Zehra and Sahibzada Tariqullh. The special committee was scheduled to meet on Monday to elect its chairperson, but the National Assembly Secretariat on Sunday announced that the meeting had now been cancelled.
