Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa, provincial chief ministers, federal, provincial ministers, MNAs, MPAs, heads, leaders of various political and religious parties including Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q), Awami Muslim League (AML), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) and others have strongly condemned the incident.
Seven-year-old Zainab, a resident of Rod Kot area of Kasur, was kidnapped on her way to a tuition centre on January 05. Her body was found in a garbage pile near Kashmir Chowk after four days. Initial postmortem said, the minor was strangled after being raped, adding that the girl was raped multiple times. When the incident occurred the minor's parents were in Saudi Arabia, where they had gone to perform Umrah.
Riots erupted in Kasur on Wednesday as residents agitated against perceived police inaction over the alleged rape and murder of an 8-year-old resident of the city. Two people were killed by gunshot wounds as enraged protesters armed with sticks and stones attempted to storm the deputy commissioner's office and were repelled by police. Two others were injured in the clashes, hospital sources said.
This is 12th such case to occur within a two kilometres radius in the city in the last year. Zainab's father claimed that police "did not cooperate" with them. "It is our friends that have stood by us. The culprits have even been identified but the police have not made any progress," he claimed. The police said that DNA samples from the victim's body have been dispatched for forensic testing. Police have dubbed the murder a serial killing, but are not ruling out rape.