A six-year-old girl was raped during Eid celebrations in a densely populated neighbourhood of Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's Punjab province, police said today.
The incident occurred at Nusrat Colony near the Mall Road, a key thoroughfare of Lahore, on Wednesday. The victim's mother, Shazia Shafiq, told police that her daughter was raped by a man named Nadim while she was visiting her parents on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha.
Shafiq said she went to her parents' home with her four children. Her father had called Nadim to paint the house.
"My daughter was playing with her two brothers in another part of the house when we found the children missing and started a search in and outside the house," she said.
She said a room in the house was found locked from the inside. "We called the neighbours and warned the accused to open the door, otherwise he would be set on fire after breaking the door," she said.
When Nadim opened the door, the girl was found unconscious with bloodstains on her clothes. He was handed over to police.
Nadim confessed to his crime, saying he gave Rs 10 each to the girl's brothers to get something from a shop and then lured her into a room and raped her.
The victim was taken to Services Hospital where doctors operated on her and said her condition was critical. DIG (Investigations) Zulfiqar Hamid said initial medical reports confirmed rape.
The incident came only a month after the rape of a five-year-old girl, which triggered outrage across Pakistan. Police have made little headway in tracing the men who raped the other minor girl.
