Pakistani authorities yesterday executed a man convicted of raping and murdering a six-year-old girl, in an incident that shocked the nation and sparked riots earlier this year.
Chilling closed-circuit TV footage broadcast on television following the killing purportedly showed the young girl — Zainab Fatima Ameen — walking hand-in-hand with an unidentified man, in what might have been her final moments.
Imran Ali, 24, was handed four separate death sentences for the rape and murder, which took place in the eastern city of Kasur in January.
Photo: AFP
In all he confessed to eight attacks on children in the city, including five murders, in a spate of violence that terrorized society.
“He was hanged this morning in the presence of a prison official and the father of the victim,” said an official at Lahore’s central prison, where the convict was executed.
“His dead body was handed over to his family who took it away for burial,” he said.
Members of Zainab’s family had called for Ali to be executed in public — a move rejected by the Lahore High Court on Tuesday.
“I have bit of satisfaction that justice has been delivered, but I am not fully satisfied as he was not hanged in public,” Zainab’s father, Ameen Ansari, told reporters outside the prison following the execution.
The young girl’s murder sparked outrage across Pakistan, with violence erupting in Kasur as thousands swarmed police stations and set fire to politicians’ homes, while people nationwide took to social media demanding action.
At least 12 cases of rape and murder have been recorded in the Kasur area in the past two years.
Ali confessed to eight of those, but four remain unsolved.
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