Police on Thursday claimed to have arrested a 19-year-old suspect in connection with the rape and murder of a four-year-old girl, 12 hours after the incident occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bajaur district.

Bajaur District Police Officer (DPO) Waqas Rafique, while addressing a press conference along with police officials at his office, said the child’s body was found in a drainage channel a day ago.

“Upon examining the body, it became clear she had been murdered,” Rafique said. “As information came to light, we formed special teams under my leadership to investigate the incident.”

According to the Bajaur police chief, a postmortem examination confirmed that the child had been raped before being killed.

“We worked throughout the night, using human intelligence and profiling the neighbourhood,” Rafique explained. “Using this information, we were able to make arrests. After interrogating the main suspect, he confessed to the crime and described what he did.

“The suspect raped the girl by luring her with the promise of food, and later raped and strangled her to death,” Rafique said, adding that police found child pornography on his mobile phone and that the evidence was sent for forensic analysis.

The police chief said that the suspect was related to the victim.

Source: Dawn