Pakistan police arrest 15 over girl's rape and murder
October 9, 2020
Police in Pakistan have arrested 15 people in connection with the rape and murder of a 2-year-old girl. Investigators said the suspects were being questioned while they wait for the DNA test results.
The girl went missing from outside her family home in the northwestern town of Charsadda on Tuesday. Officers found her mutilated body on a nearby mountain the following day. An autopsy conducted on Friday found that she had been raped and stabbed to death.
The case has triggered widespread outrage across the predominantly Muslim nation.
It is the latest incident in a series of child abuse cases in Pakistan. Last month, a teenage boy raped and murdered a six-year-old girl in the same region.
Pakistan in March introduced the death penalty as a potential punishment for child sex offenders. That law's introduction followed the rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl was raped and murdered in 2018, but NGOs say it has done little to prevent sex crimes against children. Almost 1,500 children were raped in the first half of 2020, according to Sahil, a charity that complies statistics on the issue
Read more:Pakistan child rape and murder case 'just tip of iceberg'
jf/msh (AP, dpa)