Haqnawaz Shinwari
PESHAWAR
Almost three weeks have passed since two minor girls were killed in a broad daylight in the provincial capital, but the police investigation is still underway and investigators are clueless to find the real perpetrators behind the brutal murders.
It is pertinent to mention here at least two girls were killed while another was allegedly raped in Peshawar. According to latest information, the police investigations are underway and have collected some samples to probe into the matters. Sources privy to the matters told this scribe that the investigation teams in the two cases have profiled around 100 suspects and acquired their DNA samples.
In the first case, 11-year-old Mahnoor was allegedly raped and then murdered on the first week of this week. Similarly in the next week, and then 8 year-year-old Hiba was brutally abused and killed.
Mahnoor was killed on 4th and Hiba has been strangled to death on 17th July, however, so far police have made no arrest in the aforementioned cases and the killers are still at large.
The police preliminary reports and local people statements claimed that the dead body of Mahnoor was recovered from an abandoned railway quarter located in the premises of cantonment board railway station residential quarters, while the dead body of Hiba was found in the area of cantonment board outside a mosque in Kalibari area of Saddar.
The leadership of different political parties, civil society’s representatives and community members condemned the two incidents and demanded the arrest of the killers.
The local community has also given a strong reaction over the heinous murders of minor girls and even in the case of Mahnoor murder family refused to bury the child and protested with body.
The heart-broken incidents were also discussed on the floor of Assembly and the provincial government was also criticized for showing lackluster response towards the incidents, lawmakers also demanded answers from the police high-ups but no concrete development in the two cases took place.
Police officials claimed that a thorough investigation in both cases has been launched and police will soon hunt down the killers.
Imran Takker, a child rights activist, said that the incidents of child sexual abuse have increase manifolds in the provincial capital. He said “unfortunately in past both society and state were in denial of this major child protection issue. But now the cases have been reporting and government is also taking prompt actions to reach the victims and arrest the perpetrators”.
However, the government required and bound to engage the community as well as other relevant stakeholders to prevent children from abuse.
He shared that child sexual abuse cases in the province have increased 93 percent in 2021 as compared with the data of 2019.
