Police found the body of an eight-year-old girl on Sunday who, they suspect, was sexually assaulted and murdered, District Police Officer (DPO) Shahid Ahmed said.
The body was recovered from some bushes in Hangu district’s Saro Khel village, Ahmed said, adding that the corpse had been shifted to the district headquarter hospital for medical examination. The minor girl had gone to a shop on Saturday afternoon to buy snacks but did not return, the DPO said. Her family and area residents had started to look for her but after failing to find her, they informed police on Sunday morning.
Will the hanging of rapists actually stop the crime?
The resolution from the National Assembly to publicly hang those convicted of murdering and sexually abusing children reflects how brutalised our society has become. While the world is forming a general consensus against cruel and inhumane punishments such as hanging, the majority of our political leaders feel that a criminal’s barbarity should also be answered with barbarity by the state.The fact that hangings have shown no decrease in the level of crime is ignored for the sake of rhetoric. If our lawmakers were indeed perturbed over crimes against children, more funds and attention would have been allocated towards the criminal justice system and the child protection legislation that is already in place.