ISLAMABAD – While the Punjab Police claim to have successfully arrested the prime suspect in Zainab rape-murder case, the provincial police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are still looking for the killer of four year old Asma who was sexually assaulted and murdered in Mardan district.
To know latest development in the case, a private TV channel’s reporter on Tuesday approached Imran Khan whose party – Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) – runs the KP government.
When the reporter asked him about the update in Mardarn girl’s rape-murder inquiry and Khan’s silence over the murder of college in Charsadda, the PTI chief reacted in an insulting manner and said: “I know Mir Shakeel (the owner of Jang Group publications) has directed you to ask such stupid questions.”
His remarks quickly invited a storm on social media, with Twitteratis trolling the former cricketer for his unruly attitude.
اس آکسفورڈ کے پڑھے لکھے پر ہنسوں یا ماتم کروں دل دہل جاتا ہے سوچ کر کہ 74 لاکھ لوگوں نے اس پر اعتماد کیا تھا۔ سندھ اسمبلی والے صحیح کہتے اسکا دماغی معائنہ لازم ہے۔
— Saeed ur Rehman Khan (@saanwal2001) January 23, 2018
آئینہ اُنکو دکھایا تو برا مان گئے
— Atiq-ur-rehman (@abidhaj1) January 23, 2018
آپ نے لاھور جلسے میں استعفی دینے کا اعلان کیا تھا زانی سے صحافی کا سوال
مجھے پتہ ھئے یہ میر شکیل کی خواہش ھئے نہی چھوڑوں گا— Ashfaqahmad (@Ashfaqa60029676) January 23, 2018
Last Wednesday, speaking during the All Parties Protest against 2014 Model Town massacre at Lahore’s Mall Road, Imran Khan said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) police not only recovered the girl’s body within 24 hours but was taking all possible measures to provide justice to the victim’s family.
Reacting to criticism over his “silence” over the four-year-old’s rape and murder in Mardan, he maintained that one cannot draw a parallel between Zainab and Asma’s case as the Kasur rape-slay victim was the 12th such girl in the Punjab district within months and that, in 2015, another horrific child abuse case too shook Pakistan but justice wasn’t delivered.
Asma’s rape and murder
Four-year-old Asma was playing outside her home when she went missing on January 13, and later her body with torture-marks was found from the fields in Jandarpar Gujjar Garhi area of Mardan.
Following the body’s discovery, KP police carried out several raids in Asma’s neighbourhood and arrested over 70 people who have been imprisoned in different jails. Some of them were later released after interrogation.
Student guns down college principal
A grade-12 student, Faheem, of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Islamia College in Shabqadar, gunned down his college principal Sareer on the pretext of ‘blasphemy’ on Monday.
Police said that the student got disgruntled after the principal had expressed his anger at Faheem over his absence from college for three days due to his reported participation in Faizabad sit-in.
The city police said that the accused fired six bullets at principal Sareer. As a result, the principal was critically injured and rushed to a hospital where he succumbed to his wounds. According to initial reports shared on social media, the student said he had “no remorse over killing the principal”.
Imran Khan, whose party holds the government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is yet to comment on the killing.
