KARACHI: Police on Friday arrested a 40-year-old man and booked him on suspicion of digging up the grave of a recently-buried woman and sexually abusing the corpse, in a Korangi graveyard.

Awami Colony police registered a case against the held suspect on the complaint of a son of the deceased woman, under sections 297 (trespassing on burial places, etc), 376 (punishment for rape) and 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The complainant stated in the FIR that he had buried his mother in the graveyard on Thursday evening.

At around 10:30pm, he came to know that the suspect disturbed the grave and molested the body. However, some people from the area caught him. They beat him and in the meantime, local police arrived at the scene and took the suspect into custody, the complainant stated in the FIR.

Later, Korangi police said in a statement that the suspect had been arrested “on the rape charge” in the Bagh-i-Korangi graveyard.

During grilling, he told the police that he used to keep an eye on burials of women in the necropolis and during nights he dug up graves to commit the heinous crime against the dead.

The police statement said he disclosed that he had sexually abused corpses of four women.

The suspect had earlier been caught by people around eight years ago for committing similar crimes in a graveyard in Korangi.

Meanwhile, Police Surgeon Summaiya Syed told Dawn that the held suspect was brought to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for a medical examination.

She said that the relatives of the deceased woman had re-buried and the police required permission from a judicial magistrate to exhume the body for further investigation.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2024