The police has arrested a man resembling the prime suspect in the kidnapping, rape and murder of seven-year-old Zainab in Pakistan.
The man was held from Lahore’s Bhatta Chowk earlier this week and was handed over to the Kasur authorities for his DNA test, Geo News reported on Wednesday.
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Zainab was kidnapped on January 4 from near her aunt’s house in Kasur city. Her body was discovered five days later from a garbage pile. The post-mortem report revealed that the minor had been raped and murdered.
The authorities said that the suspect’s mobile phone location showed that he was in Kasur.
The brutal murder of Zainab has incited anger among residents as it is the 12th such case to occur within a two kilometre radius in the city in the last year. Kasur made international headlines in 2015 when a gang of paedophiles running a child sex ring was busted.
The gang allegedly abducted and sexually assaulted at least 280 children in the area, had blackmailed the families of the victims since 2009 and even sold video clips and images of the assault.
A Supreme Court bench on Tuesday expressed its displeasure over the lack of progress by the Punjab government and police on the Zainab case.
According to the authorities, around 1,100 suspects have been questioned in the case.
“If the issue isn’t solved then it’ll be a failure of the government and police,” the Chief Justice observed during the proceedings, adding that the same mistakes are made in every case after which suspects are exonerated due to shoddy investigations.
The Chief Justice also said that the accused in the Zainab case was a serial killer.
