MULTAN:
A nine-year-old girl was raped and murdered allegedly by her uncle on Thursday evening.
According to police officials, Jhangra Sharqi resident Ghareeb Nawaz’s daughter Sidra was playing in the street with her brothers and cousins when her uncle Haneef called her inside to get him a glass of water.
“We all heard him call her to come in and fetch him some water but we didn’t think about it twice because he lives here and has practically raised her,” Sidra’s mother Sughran Bibi told police officials.
Locals in the area said that Sidra’s parents and Haneef lived in the same house and Haneef was Ghareeb Nawaz’s younger brother.
“He has two sons of his own as well as a daughter. I can’t imagine how he could do something like this,” Sughran said.
Police officials said that Haneef lured Sidra into a room, where he tied her up and raped her. He then strangled the girl and threw her body in a garbage dump outside the house. “We had no idea what had happened and we began searching for her late in the evening. At first we thought she was playing hide and seek from her cousins but by nightfall we got really scared,” said Ghareeb Nawaz.
“I found the body in the dumpster when a couple of dogs were sniffing around it. I saw an animal bite at the human hand and immediately called the police,” said neighbour Faraz.
Faraz told police officials that he immediately called Ghareeb Nawaz because he recognised his daughter. “They were distraught and we found out that Haneef had escaped,” he said.
Nowsherea Jadeed Police station officials sent the body to the DHQ hospital for a post mortem.
“The post mortem results confirmed that the girl was raped and beaten. She was finally strangled,” said Dr Alvi. “We have reported back to the police and the family has sent us DNA samples of her uncle to confirm if he was the rapist,” he said. Alvi said that the DNA testing would take one more day.
Meanwhile, District Police Officer Babar Bukht Qureshi said that a police team had been constituted to investigate the incident. “Something like this will not go unpunished.
We are searching for the accused and are waiting on the lab tests in this regard,” he said. Sidra’s parents also locked Haneef’s children in a room and beat them to seek the location of their father.
“We are sending his wife and children to a Darul Salam. They do not know where he is but they may not be safe in the house after what happened,” Qureshi said.
“I want him to be caught and punished. If what they say is true I will leave him. I don’t want him anywhere near my children,” said Haneef’s wife Rashida.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2011.
how can this be in the ISLAMIC republic of pakistan?? how can a muslim man rape his own niece??
the little child was only 9 years old !! i’ve seen on news reports and read in papers of too many of our men who think that ‘marriage’ and then physical relationship with a 9 year old child is appropriate behaviour !! our maulvis have spread this horrific belief that islam allows marriage to and physical relationship with 9 year old children.i saw on tv myself a little while ago a maulvi proudly and confidently telling the newsreporter that religion allowed marriages and physical relationships with 9 year old children and this monster had no shame for promoting sick paedophilia but infact he was giving religious approval to paedophilia.
As long as maulvis continue to perform nikah ceremonies of small girls our people will continue to get the message that physical relationship with small girl children is religiously allowed.This case is not just a case of rape but is even more heinous,it’s a case of paedophilia,why ET doesn’t use the term ‘paedophilia or paedophiles’ i don’t understand.
there’s a difference between rape and paedophilia, paedophiles rape small girls who have no understanding of what’s going on.paedophiles need to be treated like the scum of the earth they really are.i’ve seen 4 cases in my life where the paedophiles wife and parents accepted what they had done and after paying off the raped child’s family thanks to our diyat and qisas laws the paedophiles continue to live happily and rape more children.
I don’t get it. How can an uncle rape a niece? This comes under INCEST.
@shahid saeed:
i’ve seen this religious approval for paedophilia myself.over the years atleast 12 of my servants were in some ways involved in these paedophile marriages.3 of my servants who were above 40 years age,one was over 60 married 9,10 year old children in their villages.when i confronted them they said what are you talking about,our village maulvi performed the nikah himself and the neighbourhood mosque in the city also says it’s allowed in islam. the other 9 cases were of my servants marrying off their little girls to paedophile men and these were not all village people.a lot of these paedophile marriages take place right in our cities.
just becaue they have religious approval our public thinks paedophile marriages are okay and good.it’s time our media initiated campaigns against paedophilia.It just shows the rock bottom leve our society is in when parents over here themselves marry of their small girls to sick,depraved older men( such men are not worthy of being called men).
what is wrong with people who are pulling Islam and Shariah and child marriage in here??….he was a sick man some of which exist in every society regardless of religion, faith or creed. child marrige is not exclusive to Muslim societies alone …it has been rampant in many down trodden poverty stricken third world societies. try to be reasonable please.
Although it is not the first such news to read , I am really shocked . I have three years old girl child, to whom one should trust and believe.
Ghairat Brigade, anyone?
@Asma Ali…..exactly. This story is sick to the core and shows that parents cannot even trust their children’s own uncles, who despite being MAHRAM to their neices as described in Sharia do such acts.
I just can’t believe an Uncle would do this.
Whether blood relation or not, it is rape of an innocent child. The fact of the matter is most child rapes are committed by close relative and close friends. The kids (both boys and girls) are smart enough not to go close to a stranger and become easy prey to a “loved one”.
It is the duty of both parents to “protect” their children for all men and some women. There should be no exception and absolutely no touching or showing physical love. In addition, if your child feels uncomfortable or does not want to go even your own father, please do not force him or her to do that.
About the child marriages in Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is there a legal or Islamic minimum age for a girl to get married? For voting the minimum age in most countries is 18 or higher but to marry (in these cases forced marriage) age is a non factor? These marriages are raped children giving birth to more children! Once this minimum age question is answered most of such rapes would be stopped. With no regard to the age of a girl, men start looking at her as an object from her childhood. Sorry, I cannot express myself and have to stop. You get the point.