In Karachi, 12-year-old boy was raped, tortured and then killed

A twelve-year-old unidentified boy was tortured, raped and killed in Karachi.

Police and medical practitioners said that on Thursday afternoon, a 55-year-old woman brought a badly injured boy to a private healthcare center for urgent medical treatment in the city’s middle-income Bahadurabad locality in a private vehicle.

After an initial examination, doctors declared the boy dead upon arrival.

Suspecting foul play, doctors referred the unidentified boy’s body to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) for a postmortem examination.

After an examination, Karachi Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed said the boy was between 12 to 14 years of age.

Confirming that the boy’s body was brought to JPMC for an autopsy, she said the victim’s body showed marks of severe torture. Moreover, there were strong suspicions that the boy had been sodomized.

“Initial findings suggest asphyxia,” the police surgeon responded when asked how the boy had died.

However, she maintained that a final determination on the cause of death is subject to the toxicology and histopathology reports.

She added that DNA samples had been collected from the teenager to identify the victim, apart from profiling and cross-matching.

Police had yet to identify the victim till the filing of this report.

Police focus on woman who brought child to doctors

District East Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Abdur Raheem Shirazi told SAMAA TV that an older woman, believed to be around 55-years-of-age, had brought the victim to the hospital in her private car.

“When the doctors pronounced the victim dead, she called Edhi Foundation’s helpline and sought their services for shifting the body,” the SSP said, quoting witnesses.

Shirazi said the woman allegedly told volunteers of the charity foundation that she had to shift the body to another welfare organization in Bahadurabad for a pre-funeral wash.

By the time the ambulance reached the private healthcare facility, the woman had disappeared.

SSP Shirazi said the police had managed to track the vehicle with the help of its registration number.

He added that they had also identified the person to whom the car was registered thanks to details available with Sindh’s Excise and Taxation department.

The officer further said that they had traced the phone number used by the woman to call Edhi services and have started a search for her.