Pakistan Hangs Imran Ali for the Rape and Murder of Zainab in Kasur
The man whose crime set off protests across Pakistan was executed in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail with the girl's father watching, eight months after a four-day trial.
Published
Her father was there to watch. In the early morning of Wednesday, October 17, 2018, Pakistan hanged Imran Ali at Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore for the abduction, rape and murder of a little girl named Zainab, whose death in the city of Kasur that January had brought protests across the country. Amin Ansari, Zainab's father, had been allowed by a court to witness the execution. Afterward he told Pakistan's Geo television that he felt justice had been served. A prison official, Muzaffar Awan, said the body was handed over to Imran's family.
Zainab went missing on January 4, 2018. Her body was found in a trash heap in Kasur, near Lahore, on January 9. Police said she had been raped and strangled. Her death was the twelfth such case within a 10-kilometer radius of the city in a year, and it set off riots in Kasur in which two people were killed. "Justice for Zainab" became a rallying cry against violence toward children. The Punjab government announced Imran Ali's arrest on January 23.
His trial moved at a pace rare anywhere. It was held inside Kot Lakhpat jail, which the Punjab prosecutor general said was for the defendant's own protection, and was finished in four days. Imran Ali at first denied the charges, then confessed. His private lawyer withdrew from the case after the confession, and a lawyer appointed by the court completed the cross-examination. The prosecution put on at least 56 witnesses as well as forensic evidence, including DNA and polygraph tests. On February 17, 2018, Judge Sajjad Ahmad of Anti-Terrorism Court-I sentenced him to death on four counts, for the kidnapping, rape and murder and for an act of terrorism under the Anti-Terrorism Act, along with a life term, seven years for concealing the body, and fines. Zainab's mother, Nusrat Bibi, asked that he be hanged in public at the place where he had taken her daughter.
Zainab was not the only child in the case. At the time of the verdict, Imran Ali faced further charges over at least seven other children who had been attacked in Kasur, five of whom had been killed, and Agence France-Presse reported that he had confessed to all eight attacks. Reports of the execution described him as having confessed during interrogation to sexually assaulting and killing seven more children. He was hanged after his appeals were rejected by the courts, officials said.
What the reports established. The execution was reported by RFE/RL from the accounts of dpa and the Associated Press, and the verdict from Dawn's courtroom coverage; no official prison or court record of the hanging could be opened. Reports give Zainab's age as six at the time of the verdict and seven at the time of the execution, and her father is named both as Amin Ansari and as Haji Muhammad Amin. The outcome of the separate cases over the other children could not be confirmed from the sources opened, so they are described here only as charges and confessions.