Rickshaw driver confesses rape, murder of three-year-old girl before court

• Accused confesses to crime before judicial magistrate's court.
• Confessional statement was recorded under Section 164 of CrPC.
• 3-year-old's body was found near her home on morning of Oct 9.
  

KARACHI: A man, accused of committing the rape and murder of a three-year-old girl in the city's Federal B area, has confessed to his crime before the court of a judicial magistrate on Monday.

During the hearing of the case pertaining to the rape and killing of the toddler, police presented the accused in the court where he recorded his statement under Section 164 of the code of criminal procedure (CrPC).

Following his admission of the crime, the court ordered sending the man named Naseer, who was a rickshaw driver and neighbour of the victim, to jail.

The accused had already confessed his crime on October 10 — a day after the little girl's body was found near her home on the morning of October 9.

The police said that he had put the victim's body in a sack before throwing it on the street. He was handed over to police by people of the neighbourhood.

The toddler's body was found on a street near her residence in Gulberg. It had a dupatta tied around her neck as a noose — indicating that she may have been strangled.

According to the police, an image extracted from CCTV footage of the accused was obtained. In the footage, the accused was seen carrying the victim's body in a sack.

Police officials also mentioned that the rape of the toddler was confirmed in the post-mortem report and that the suspect is being interrogated as part of the case's investigation.

After the victim's body was found a day earlier, it was taken to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities.

According to police, the little girl — identified as Amna — was the youngest of six siblings, and her father is currently in Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah.

Police said the girl had followed her siblings at around 7:15am when they left for school in the morning, and was found dead at 7:30am at a short distance from her home.

'Over 370m women, girls experience sexual assault before 18'

According to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef), more than 370 million girls and women alive today, or one in every eight worldwide, experienced rape or sexual assault before the age of 18.

The number rises to 650 million, or one in five, when taking into account "non-contact" forms of sexual violence, such as online or verbal abuse, Unicef reported, in what it called the first global survey of the problem.

Unicef said sexual violence cuts across geographical, cultural, and economic boundaries, but Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of victims, with 79 million girls and women, or 22% affected. Eastern and South-Eastern Asia follow with 75 million, or 8%.

In its data for women and girls, UNICEF estimated 73 million, or 9%, were affected in Central and Southern Asia; 68 million, or 14%, in Europe and Northern America; 45 million, or 18%, in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 29 million, or 15%, in Northern Africa and Western Asia.

Oceania, with 6 million, had the highest number affected by percentage, at 34%.