HARIPUR: Police have arrested three teenage boys for ‘kidnapping’ a five-year-old girl, who went missing about 12 days ago from an urban locality here.
One of the accused confessed before the magistrate that he and one of the four accomplices had raped the girl after abduction.
He, however, said that he left the place of the crime after committing the rape and did not know about what happened to the girl afterwards.
According to police records, the girl, who was the only child of a daily wage earner, stepped out of her home at around 6pm on August 10 but did not return.
The police launched a combing operation of the area, registered a case under sections 364-A, 376/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code on August 12 against unidentified kidnappers.
Police teams collected CCTV footage, and during the investigation, they traced a minor boy with whom the minor girl was attached and was playing in the street when she went missing.
After questioning a minor boy, the police traced two motorcycles and the suspects involved in the abduction of the girl.
Police claimed that on the basis of CCTV camera footage and geo-fencing of the area, they traced and arrested an 18-year-old boy, a resident of Model Town and his two accomplices.
During interrogation, the boy confessed while recording a statement before the duty magistrate that a friend of his, a seminary student, and another unknown person abducted the girl and took her to the Model Town ground.
“After taking the girl to the ground, he said he, along with his friend, raped her one after the other. Afterwards, I left the place, and I am not aware of what happened to the girl,” he told the magistrate in his statement.
The accused, after his confessional statement, was sent to Haripur jail on judicial remand, police said.
When contacted, district police officer Shafiullah Khan Gandapur confirmed to Dawn that one of three suspects had confessed to the crime of kidnapping and raping the girl, while the other two had also been arrested.
He said that the other two accused would be produced before the court for their statements and physical remand on Sunday (today).
Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2026/
