Suspect Arrested In Killing Of 7-Year-Old Zainab Ansari
Police
in Lahore, Pakistan, have arrested a man for the rape and brutal murder
of 7-year-old Zainab Ansari, officials said on Tuesday.
According to The Associated Press, the suspect was known to Ansari’s family."
Chief
Minister Shahbaz Sharif identified the suspect as 24-year-old Mohammed
Imran, who confessed to killing Ansari and at least seven other
children.
Sharif
said at a news conference that a forensics lab had processed over 1,000
DNA samples linking Imran to a string of child slayings before making
the arrest.
“The
beast has confessed to have committed the past such crimes,” the
official told reporters. “His DNA was matched 100 percent with samples
collected from crime scenes.”
Ansari
was reported missing in early January after leaving her aunt’s house to
walk to a Quran class in Kasur, a city in the Pakistani province of
Punjab on the border with India. Police recovered her body from a
garbage dumpster several days later.
Her
death sparked a string of protests in Pakistan, because community
members accused the police of not doing much to solve the incessant
murders of children. Some schools were closed during the protests. Two
people were killed by the police when they police tried to disperse
protesters.
Her
death also brought renewed attention to the abductions and rapes of
seven other children in Kasur. Only one of the victims, a 6-year-old
girl, was not killed, and all of them were found to have Imran’s DNA on
them.
But
Ansari’s father, Mohammed Amin Ansari, suggested it’s not enough to
point the finger at one serial predator, saying police should have done
more to warn the public.
There
have been at least 20 cases of children abducted, raped and killed in
the Kasur district in the last year, according to local lawyer and
activist Waqas Abid. Pakistan’s Senate committee tasked with overseeing
policing recently launched an inquiry into the sexual assaults in Kasur.
Pakistani
fashion designer Maheen Khan, who has spoken openly about her own
sexual abuse as a child, said she hoped Ansari’s death would effect a
change in culture.
“What disturbs me the most is the silence when a little girl gets raped,” Khan told the AP. “It has to do with the honor of family. Parents tell their daughters: ‘Don’t talk about it. Don’t tell anyone.’ Our silence is saying it is all right to sexually molest a child.”
“We are now saying enough is enough. We should have woken up long ago.”
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