Lahore, Pakistan - Two civilians were
killed when officers fired live rounds to disperse crowds that
attacked a police station in Pakistan on Wednesday in a protest
over the rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl.
Police recovered the body of Zainab Ansari on Tuesday from a
garbage dumpster in the town of Kasur in eastern Pakistan, four
days after she was reported missing.
It was the twelfth incident of a girl being adducted, raped,
and killed in the past year in Kasur district, police say.
Residents have been furious at the authorities for what they see
as a failure to investigate such cases.
The spokesman for Pakistan's Punjab province, Malik Muhammad
Ahmad Khan, told Reuters that protesters turned violent and
attacked a local police office.
"They started throwing stones at the office and some of
armed protesters shot bullets at police. In order to stop them,
police resorted to aerial firing," Khan said, adding that two
people were killed and one wounded as a result.
Locals said police responded with undue force.
People attend the funeral of Zainab Ansari who was raped and killed in Kasur, Pakistan. Picture: Qazi Mehmood/AP
"A peaceful protest was taking place, some students threw
stones and police responded by firing at the crowd," Saleem ur
Rehman, a resident who was at the protest, told Reuters. "The
law and order situation here is really bad and there have been
many such incidents. That is what the protest was about."
Ansari's parents, who were not in the country when their
daughter was kidnapped, returned on Wednesday.
"I want justice! I want justice!" Zainab's mother cried,
surrounded by reporters at the international airport in the
capital Islamabad.
Ansari's case has attracted the attention of the country's
civilian and military leadership, with Punjab Chief Minister
Shahbaz Sharif calling for immediate action.
A mob angered over the recent rape and murder of a young child attacked a police station in eastern Punjab province, triggering clashes that left at least two people dead and several injured. Picture: Qazi Mehmood/AP
Police in Kasur deny they have been lax in investigating
child abductions in the town. Regional police officer Zulfiqar
Hameed told Reuters that four kidnappers had been arrested and
another killed during an arrest attempt.
"Investigations reveal that in each case a paedophile
kidnaps little girls, rapes them and kills them," he said.
The case of Ansari would soon be solved, he said: "We have
got CCTV footage that shows a young man taking her along. We
will catch him very soon," he said, adding that 95 DNA samples
had been taken from suspects.
A number of police officials have been transferred out of
the region for failing to investigate complaints of missing
children since 2015, when authorities uncovered what they called
a paedophile ring linked to a prominent local family. At least
two people have been convicted in the case, in which authorities
say hundreds of children in the district were abused.