“It was a rather wide area – more than 600 houses! Yet, just two pieces of cloth led us to our culprit,” says Amir Sajid, an officer of Karachi Police who helped track down the killer of a five-year-old girl named Marwah, in a video that has went viral on social media.
Sajid, in the video, explains the details of the Sindh Police investigation into the rape and murder case of the five-year-old. In addition to outlining the facts of the rape and subsequent murder, he briefed the public on the investigation as well.
5-year-old Marwah had left her home one Tuesday morning to get herself some biscuits from the nearby market. She never returned. Marwa went missing at 7am on Friday, September 4, from Karachi’s PIB Colony.
On Sunday, September 6, she was found dead – her body left in a gunny sack. Authorities say it was unrecognisable. “The decayed body that looked as if it was charred was found on a pile of garbage in a vacant piece of land in the Essa Nagri area,” an officer said.
A post mortem report generated at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre revealed that the child had been raped. The cause of death was a blow to the head. In the video, Sajid detailed the whole investigation into the grisly murder.
Another 5-year-old had been rapped, torched & thrown in trash heap. Culprits of heinous crime haven't been identified. The incident angered masses. We've been demanding public execution since #ZainabCase to #Marwa's. If Govt doesn't give justice, it's involved in ruthless act. pic.twitter.com/XajTWRhSVp
— 전 앤국 (@HinaGazi16) September 8, 2020
Read more: Police arrest 12 suspects in 5 year old Marwah’s rape and murder case
‘Prime suspect was not culprit’
Officer Sajid explained how the child had to walk only about 25 steps away from home to get to a store where she could buy biscuits. Ten minutes after she left, the deceased’s maternal grandmother set out to locate her, he revealed.
“When the family started getting worried, wondering why Mawra had not returned, her grandmother went to the same store to find her. She couldn’t. To no avail, the family filed an FIR against her disappearance at 10 pm the same day,” he said.
The officer, speaking for the police, claimed that their primary suspect was a fellow named Nawaz. “The most prominent reason for this suspicion was that Nawaz resided in the area between the victim’s house and the store,” he underlined.
Other reasons for suspicion, as explained by Sajid, were that he was the same person who produced the dead body of the child from the garbage area in Essa Nagri. He had cleaned his entire house, his carpets, and even his clothes, Sajid added.
“A bloodstain found, however, caused suspicion to turn into belief, and Nawaz was subsequently taken into custody for interrogation. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that Nawaz was not the culprit after all,” he said.
Read more: Nida Yasir censured for ‘insensitive’ remarks to parents of five-year-old rape victim
The only clue
“She was only 5, so she spoke less. There was not much we could find. There were not many clues,” Sajid lamented. However, the officer said the police found one clue. “The girl was wrapped in pieces of cloth. Both were different, but only in color.”
Sajid further disclosed that the investigation then depended on finding the origins of the cloth. He claimed the police interrogated clothing stores and tailors within the area. They also expanded the search for the cloth to other areas.
“We were told that this cloth is used only for sofa covers or waistcoats. So we started looking inside houses and shops in the area.” With no luck, the police then came across a tailor who was based farther away from the crime scene and discovered that the cloth belonged to him – he used it for ironing.
In no time, per Sajid, the police were able to identify all those who could have acquired the cloth from the tailor. Their investigation led them to the one individual who lived in the same area as the deceased victim.
“We caught him and brought him under observation. Even though no one in the area suspected him, we conducted a DNA test, and a fingerprint test of both him and his friend, who was his accomplice in the crime.”
“Both matched. Both had a background of drugs and addiction. One of the two had also raped a 10 year old girl in the past. This rape was not reported because the girl’s family was embarrassed,” he revealed.
Read more: Rape victims don’t lose honour, the rapists do! – Maleeha Hashmey
Sajid then called upon the viewers to trust the police force, saying that even though some cases may take more time than others, the police do reach just conclusions. “It was a rather wide area – more than 600 houses! Yet, just two pieces of cloth led us to our culprit.”
Of course, it is great news that the culprits were caught. Nonetheless, social media users say it is high time that the state focused not only on catching the culprit once the crime has been committed, but on preventing the crime from happening altogether.