Pakistan's serial killer executed for rape, murder of minors

Islamabad: Imran Ali sentenced to death for the rape and murder of Zainab Ansar and 12 other minor girls was hanged on Wednesday at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail in Pakistan.

The black warrant for Imran Ali’s execution was carried out at 5.30 am in accordance with the prevailing law on capital punishment.  

Imran Ali’s body was later handed over to his family. Ali was convicted in February after being identified through DNA tests and was sentenced to death on one count, 25 years of imprisonment on two counts. In other cases, Imran Ali was awarded death sentence on four counts and life imprisonment on one count.

Zainab Ansari was abducted on January 4 from near her aunt’s house in Kasur. Her body was recovered from a garbage heap near her house five days later, sparking widespread protests in which two people died from police firing.

The police later collected DNA samples of 1,187 people from January 12 to January 23 to trace the accused.  On January 23, the police arrested Imran Ali, a neighbour of Zainab Ansari, as his DNA matched not only with the DNA samples collected from the body of Zainab Ansari, but also at least seven other victims.

On February 10, the court handed over copies of the challan (charge-sheet) to the accused counsel in a hearing which was held in Kot Lakhpat jail and February 12 was fixed for framing of charges.

On February 12, the judge asked the accused whether he accepted the charges levelled against him in the challan (charge-sheet). 

The accused refused to accept the charges after which the court indicted him in the case and started regular trial proceedings.

However, on the next day, Imran Ali confessed to raping and killing Ayesha Asif, Eman Fatima, Noor Fatima, Laiba Saleem, Zainab Ansari and others. 

All the victims were less than 8 years old.