Two key suspects in minor’s rape-murder case arrested

islamabad — Two people have been arrested in connection with the rape and murder case of seven-yearold Zainab, with police terming it an important development in the search of suspect(s) involved in the case.

Zainab Ansari was kidnapped from her neighbourhood in the Punjab city of Kasur on January 4. She was raped and later murdered. Her body was found from a heap trash on January 9.

Investigators found an empty box near the body of the girl and one of the suspects arrested on Friday was identified by the help of a forensic examination, Dawn News on Saturday quoted unnamed sources as saying.

The suspect had already been booked in six rape cases. The other suspect is his brother who is also booked in some similar cases.

The sources said the two brothers were residents of the College Road area where a minor rape survivor was found in November. The girl is still under treatment at Children’s Hospital, Lahore.

An investigation team formed on January 10 to probe the Zainab murder case has collected data of 300 mobile phone numbers and six of them have been marked for further investigation. The sources said locator vans had been working in Kasur for the past three days to trace the location of the two suspects.

They said they were arrested from a place outside the district where they were hiding. The police had interrogated around 1,300 people and released many of them after their DNA tests.

Separately, on a call at helpline, police raided two rented houses in Ali Park and Peerowala Road whose tenants had gone missing. Police took the owners into custody to know the whereabouts of the tenants. —