Another Zainab raped and killed | The Express Tribune

In a yet another horrific case of sexual violence against a child reported in the country, a two-and-a-half-year-old girl was first abducted, raped and then killed by her captors in Charsadda on Thursday.

The girl was identified as Zainab, who was abducted a day ago.

Hospital sources said that according to the girl’s medical, the minor was raped 18 hours ago, after which the girl’s upper and lower torso were slashed with a knife. DNA samples of the girl have been sent to the Khyber Medical College, Peshawar.

Soon after the case came to light, Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mehmood Khan ordered the IGP and other officials to immediately arrest those involved in the incident.

The K-P chief minister said that the incident was very heartbreaking and inhumane, and those involved in the henious crime would be made an example out of.

Earlier in September, a five-year-old girl in Punjab was raped, hit on the head and set on fire. Five days later, a woman in Lahore was dragged from her car and sexually assaulted on a highway in front of her children.

The two episodes, which occurred hundreds of miles apart, have prompted protests and an outpouring of rage in a country that critics say has a toxic culture surrounding sexual assaults and child abuse.

In another case that garnered much attention and anger, a burnt body of a five-year-old girl, M*, was found wrapped in a sheet in a garbage dump near Essa Nagri on August 5, 2020. The child had been kidnapped, raped and later murdered.

Pakistan has been plagued by episodes of rape and child abuse over the years with the cases only becoming an amost daily occurrence.