KARACHI: Police in the southern Pakistani province of Sindh said on Wednesday they had arrested two suspects in the rape of a 10-year-old girl whose family had survived devastating floods in their village and were living on a footpath in the port city of Karachi.
The family of the girl fled their village in Sindh’s Shikarpur district last month, according to a police report, and were currently squatting in Karachi’s upscale Clifton neighborhood.
“Both suspects accused of the rape have been arrested from Karachi and Tando Allahyar yesterday,” Asad Raza, a Senior Superintendent of Police, told Arab News, identifying the suspects as Ghulam Rasool and Khalid Hussain Lund.
“Ghulam Rasool drives a Careem cab. Him and his friend Khalid Hussain Lund picked up the girl by luring her with food,” the police officer said. DNA sample had been collected from both suspects, he added. “Police caught the suspects with the help of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras.”
Karachi police surgeon Dr. Summaiya Syed told Arab News the rape took place on Sunday night, after which the survivor was taken to the Jinnah Post-Graduate Medical Center (JPMC) in critical condition on Monday evening.
“It’s horrible, had she not been provided treatment for one more hour, she would have died because she was brought in a life-threatening situation and with excessive blood loss,” Syed said, saying the child was out of danger now.
Last month, another girl was also reportedly gang-raped after she went to receive relief goods in the flood-hit Sanghar district of Sindh.
At least 2,211 children faced different forms of sexual and other abuse in Pakistan between January to June this year, Sahil, a non-profit organization working against child sexual abuse, said in a report compiling data from 88 national and regional newspapers.
Fewer than three percent of sexual assault or rape cases result in a conviction in Pakistan, according to the Karachi-based advocacy group War against Rape.
