HARIPUR: The post-mortem report of a five-year-old girl who went missing from outside her home in Haripur on Aug 10 and was later found dead revealed that she had been raped and died from excessive bleeding and shock, it emerged on Thursday.

The child’s body was recovered from an unused well of a warehouse at about a furlong’s distance from her home on August 24 on the pointation of one of the four arrested suspects.

According to the autopsy report, a copy of which is available with Dawn, confirmed that the minor was subjected to rape.

Dr Munawar Afridi, who was part of the team that conducted the autopsy, told Dawn that the team had also collected body samples for DNA testing and forensic analysis and handed them over to the police for further proceedings.

Separately, police confirmed to Dawn that the fourth suspect was produced before a magistrate today, who sent him on judicial remand.

One of the members of the investigation team told Dawn that the suspect, a resident of the locality, had lured the child to follow him by asking if she wanted to see her father, who was waiting at a distance.

District Police Officer (DPO) Shafiullah Gandapur told Dawn that he had requested the formation of a panel of prosecutors to examine the case and determine whether the anti-terrorism act could be invoked.

He added that the four suspects were juveniles, hence “the situation called for strict adherence to legal provisions”. He further said that the police were still investigating the case.

On Tuesday, speaking to the media at a press conference, Gandapur said the five-year-old went missing from outside her home at around 6pm on Aug 10.

Police initially began an inquiry under Section 156(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which deals with investigations into cognisable cases, and formally registered a first information report (FIR) under Section 364-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) relating to kidnapping or abduction with intent to murder, on Aug 12.

The move followed the collection of CCTV footage and geofencing of the area, according to police.

The DPO said police had initially arrested three suspects, one of whom recorded a confessional statement before a duty magistrate last week.

According to the statement, four suspects were involved in abducting the five-year-old and taking her to an area near Model Town, where the suspect and another accused allegedly sexually assaulted her.

According to Gandapur, none of the three suspects initially arrested by police disclosed where they had left the victim after the assault. However, during a search of the area, police obtained CCTV footage from another house, which helped them trace a fourth suspect.

Acting on information provided by the fourth suspect, police recovered the five-year-old’s body from an unused well at a warehouse near one of the link roads leading to Haripur University, the DPO said.

He said the suspect had thrown the child into the well after allegedly raping her and had attempted to conceal the body with foliage.