ISLAMABAD: Pakistani police said on Thursday they had arrested a man suspected of shooting dead his seven-day-old baby girl because he wanted his first-born to be a boy.
The baby named Jannat, which means heaven in Urdu, was shot multiple times on Monday. Police have told media the autopsy found that Jannat had been hit by five bullets and was killed instantly.
“Mianwali police have arrested the ruthless father who shot and killed a newborn baby girl,” Punjab Police confirmed in a Twitter post.
“The IG [Inspector General] Punjab has directed DPO [District Police Officer] Mianwali to oversee the investigation himself and rigorously punish the accused,” the tweet read.
Pakistan has tried to address the problem of violence against women by strengthening its legal framework in the past.
Earlier this year, it enacted a law to protect women from workplace harassment, though legal experts maintain such measures are not always fully implemented.
Human rights groups say girls and women face regular violence for a variety of reasons in Pakistan, which sits three spots above the bottom of the World Economic Forum’s 2021 gender Gap Index.
Female infanticide is also widespread, rights groups say.
Over the last two years, a majority of the more than 500 bodies of infants found dumped in the southern city of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, were girls, according to Faisal Edhi, head of the largest social welfare charity group in the city.
