A judicial magistrate on Tuesday remanded a man in police custody a day after he was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in Soma Gondola village in the suburbs of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

On Monday afternoon, the victim's parents brought her to the Nasirabad police post in Patikka, where she narrated her ordeal before sub-inspector Syed Wajahat Kazmi. Kazmi recorded it in shape of an application which was later converted into a First Information Report (FIR) in Kahori police station.

Kahori is 10 kilometres northeast of Muzaffarabad along the Neelum Valley Road and Nasirabad is further eight kilometres ahead.

The victim said that on Monday morning, her parents left the house to cut firewood in a nearby jungle and she was alone in her house when the accused entered, locked the door, and proceeded to assault her.

According to the victim, he then tried to flee the scene and she rushed after him. Her parents also arrived back at the same time and noticed the accused running away.

Kazmi said he sent the victim to Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahayan Hospital Muzaffarabad for medical examination and himself left for Soma Gondola village to apprehend the accused.

Though the high-altitude Soma Gondola village is hardly 15km west of Nasirabad, it took him around one-and-a-half hour to reach there, due to absence of a road link beyond 10 kilometres.

The accused was hiding in a nullah when police caught him. Kazmi claims that he also confiscated the victim’s bloodstained torn clothes from the accused.

SI Kazmi said the accused was an illiterate person in his early twenties who had spent some time in Karachi doing odd jobs.

“Had we not taken him into custody he was planning to flee to Karachi the same evening,” he said.

Kazmi said as he spoke with the accused on the way back to the police post he found him to be a “sex-maniac” who did not have an iota of remorse for the ghastly act he had committed.

“The accused claimed that he did the act with the girl’s consent, but I do not believe him,” Kazmi told Dawn.

He said a preliminary medical examination suggested that the victim had been sexually assaulted.

The policeman said the accused had been booked under section 10(3) of Zina Act, and given the severity of the crime its investigation was shifted to inspector Chaudhry Munir. The accused has been remanded into police custody for a week.