Spine chilling crime! 8-year-old girl gangraped, eyes gouged out in Sindh province of Pakistan

In yet another instance of crime against women, an eight-year-old girl was gangraped in Sindh province’s Umarkot district, Pakistan. The perpetrators continued their assault by gouging out her eyes after they had already raped her.

The incident was made public after a Hindu rights activist in Pakistan posted a video clip showing the girl being carried on a stretcher by her parents inside a hospital complex.

It is claimed that the crime is not only an act against women, rather it’s a crime against minorities in Pakistan. Read our earlier report on crime against minorities in Pakistan here.

According to the victim’s mother, the victim left for a nearby store but did not come back. Several hours after going missing, Umarkot police found her. The police transported her to a local hospital and began an investigation. Police are reportedly attempting to arrest the accused who are now on the run.

Targeted crimes in Pakistan

The CIA World Factbook estimates that 5% of Pakistan’s 180 million population is comprised of minorities, including Ahmadis, Shiite Muslims, Hindus, and Christians. Ahmadis are regarded as heretics by traditional Muslims. As the dominance of Islamic hard-liners over the nation has grown in recent years, so has the level of violence against minorities.

93 people were killed at a Lahore Ahmadi mosque during a shooting rampage in May 2010. 18 people were killed in February of this year when gunmen in northern Pakistan halted four buses, selected those with names that sounded Shiite, and shot them to death. The government’s lone Christian Cabinet minister, who opposed the regulations, was shot and executed by militants the same year a regional governor who criticised the blasphemy laws was killed by his own security.

51 Hindu girls have reportedly been forcefully converted to Islam in the past four months in southern Sindh province, where the majority of Pakistan’s minority Hindu population resides.

“Christian and Hindu girls are targeted more and more,” says Father Emmanuel Yousaf, who heads the National Commission for Justice and Peace, an organisation born out of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference.

Crime against women and children is a growing epidemic in Pakistan, and criminals deserve the worst punishment, death.