By Muhammad Luqman
The police of central Pakistan province of Punjab has arrested 27-years old person involved in committing unnatural offence with four children before killing them in eastern city of Kasur near international border with India.
“Suhail Shehzad, the serial killer behind the rape and murders of four minor boys in Kasur district has been identified,” Punjab’s Chief Minister , Usman Buzdar told a press conference in the provincial capital, Lahore on Tuesday evening.
The culprit, he said, was identified through polygraphic and DNA tests.
“Geo-fencing for 1,649 suspects was carried out and DNA samples of 1,543 were tested,” said Buzdar.
#Kasur #PunjabPolice pic.twitter.com/ptWxIogCEB
— Punjab Police Official (@OFFICIALDPRPP) October 1, 2019
The chief minister confirmed that the suspect was behind all four cases of sodomy and murder which shook Kasur last month and threw fresh light on the continued prevalence of child sexual abuse in the country.
“The case against him will be pursued in an anti-terrorism court,” he announced, adding that “I will oversee the Chunian case myself”.
The suspect Suhail Shehzad , a resident of nearby locality, Rana Town had committed the crimes in June, August and September.
Four children — aged between eight and 12 years — had gone missing since June with the latest, Faizan, 8, disappearing on the night of September 16.
The remains of three were found on September 17 from sand dunes near Chunian Industrial Estate.
Shehzad grabbed the police’s attention after his brother filed a missing person’s report on September 22. According to the police complaint, Shehzad took the family’s tractor to the market in the Chunian area and then disappeared.
Police used Shehzad’s four mobile numbers to trace his location. After finding him in Rahim Yar Khan district, he was arrested and brought to Kasur for DNA testing, according to a report of English newspaper, Daily Express Tribune.
One reason for linking Shehzad to the crime, officials said, was that when the police searched for his phone’s locations over the past few days, one of his numbers was found to be in the area from where Faizan had gone missing.
Shehzad had already served a five-year term in jail after being convicted for sodomy a few years ago.
In the last few years, the eastern city of Kasur has been rocked by multiple incidents of abuse, rape and killing of children. In January 2018, six-year-old Zainab Ansari was found dead in a trash heap near Shahbaz Khan Road, five days after she went missing. Hers was the 12th such incident to have occurred within a 10-kilometre radius in Kasur over a 12-month period. Her death had sparked nationwide protests and outrage.
The prime suspect, Imran Ali, had been arrested on Jan 23, 2018, and on June 12 the Supreme Court had turned down his appeal against the death sentence, noting that he had admitted to committing similar offences with eight other minor victims. Ali was subsequently executed in October.
In 2015, Kasur’s Hussain Khanwala village had attracted worldwide attention when a child pornography ring was busted. Hundreds of video clips had emerged showing a gang forcing dozens of minor boys and girls to perform sexual acts and filming them. The gang had also used the videos to blackmail families of the children and extorted millions in cash and jewellery from them, Express Tribune reported.
To avert the kidnapping of the children, Prime Minister Imran Khan has has directed officials to design a mobile app for missing children within two weeks. The application will be named “Mera Bacha Alert” and it will be linked to the Pakistan Citizen Portal.
