The brutal rape and murder of seven-year-old Zainab earlier this month had resulted in widespread protests across Pakistan, with various groups blaming law enforcement officials for doing very little for the safety of children in Kasur.
There has been a series of similar killings in Kasur over the past couple of years, but no significant arrests were made until early this week, when 24-year-old Imran Ali was arrested.
On Tuesday, Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif revealed during a press conference that Ali had admitted to his crimes during a polygraph test and his DNA matched the samples that were retrieved from the crime scene.
According to reports, Ali confessed to molesting eight minor girls at an under-construction site and two others in a garbage heap. He also admitted to murdering five minor girls at an under-construction site and threw away the bodies of three others in a garbage pile.
Ali's arrest has been met with shock, with locals revealing that Ali and Zainab's family knew each other well and he had even visited her house a number of times before. He was seen at Zainab's funeral and was even part of a protest march that condemned what happened to the seven-year-old.
Ali reportedly lured Zainab saying he was going to meet her parents who were at the time away in Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage. He lured his other victims by promising to buy them sweets, hair clips and snacks.
Zainab was staying with her uncle when she went missing. Zainab was on her way to her Koran classes when she was kidnapped. Her body was recovered from a garbage heap several days later and according to her autopsy report, Zainab was raped before she was killed.
Ali was wearing a zip-up jacket when he kidnapped Zainab and this helped police narrow down the suspects. Security camera images obtained from a hardware shop showed Zainab with a man wearing a dark coloured jacket, and while searching Ali's home police officials found a similar jacket, which eventually led to Ali's arrest.
