The last thing Zainab ever wrote was a school assignment. It sat in her notebook, in her own careful handwriting: “I am a girl. My name is Zainab. My father’s name is Amin.
I am 7 years old. I live in Kasur. ”
She was born on August 18th, 2010, the youngest of four children. Her mother, Nusrat, nearly died giving birth to her and always called her a gift, an angel sent to their family.
Her father, Amin, was a civil servant. Nusrat taught at a local school. Zainab wasn’t interested in play like other children. She focused on her studies and was deeply devoted to prayer.
She would remind her mother to wake her before dawn for early morning prayers, and after school she went straight to her Quran lessons. She knew many prayers by heart, reciting the right one when stepping out of the house and again when returning. But Kasur had already become a dangerous place for children. For eight years, from 2006 to 2014, a large-scale child assault ring operated in the nearby village of Hussain Khanwala.
In 2015, hundreds of video recordings were discovered. Around 300 children, mostly boys, had been victimized. The material was sold online and used to blackmail the victims’ families. Allegations surfaced that local police and even a lawmaker from the ruling party, Malik Ahmad Saeed Khan, tried to cover up the crimes.
Residents protested against police inaction, leading to violent clashes, tear gas, baton charges, and injuries on both sides. The Punjab Law Minister dismissed the reports, claiming a government inquiry found no verified cases and suggesting the allegations stemmed from a land dispute. In the years that followed, child abductions and assault cases climbed. By early 2018, at least twelve young girls had been assaulted and killed within a two-kilometer radius in Kasur.
Most of their bodies were found in drains or garbage heaps. Parents and activists accused police of negligence, saying the cases were never properly investigated. On the evening of January 4th, 2018, Zainab was at home. Her parents were performing the Umrah pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, leaving their children in the care of relatives.
Zainab told her family she wanted to attend her religious classes nearby. She dressed warmly that evening, wearing two pairs of leggings, a green pullover, an orange knitted dress, and a black and white striped hoodie. Around 7:00 p. m.
, Zainab and her cousin left the house, walking through the narrow side street toward the main bazaar at Road Kot. They passed a mosque where worshippers had finished evening prayers and turned left into the bazaar. As they neared their aunt’s house, Zainab suddenly sprinted ahead, leaving her cousin behind. At that moment, a man emerged from the darkness and called her name.
CCTV footage showed Zainab pausing, turning toward the man, and following him into a narrow lane. Investigators believed he told her that her parents had returned from Saudi Arabia and wanted to see her. He led her away from familiar surroundings. Between 7:08 p.
m. and 8:45 p. m. , multiple cameras recorded their movements through narrow residential alleys and past local businesses, spanning roughly three-quarters of a kilometer, taking them further from her home.
The streets were uneven, filled with garbage, with no lighting and open sewage around. The last known footage showed Zainab walking with the man toward a bridge near Madina Colony and Ali Park. Zainab never returned home. As word spread, neighbors joined the search.
Around 9:30 p. m. , her uncle filed a missing person’s report. Her parents cut their pilgrimage short and returned to Pakistan on January 10th.
Posters bearing her photograph and two bloody handprints were plastered across Kasur. Social media filled with her picture under the hashtag #justiceforzainab. But her relatives complained that police showed little urgency. They said officers would come and sit drinking tea and eating oranges, never cooperating with the search teams.
On January 9th, a policeman searching near a garbage dumping ground along Shahbaz Khan Road, only 400 meters from Zainab’s house, found the body of a young girl. The site was littered with trash, and a bulldozer was working nearby, shifting garbage from one area to another. Her body was clad in the same orange dress and black and white hoodie she had worn on January 4th. Mud, garbage, and blood clung to her hair and clothes.
Her body was partially out of rigor mortis. Dr. Quratulain Atiq, a young medical legal officer at Kasur’s district hospital, performed the autopsy. She found torture marks on Zainab’s face and body.
The hyoid bone in her neck was fractured. There was bruising on the tongue and evidence of asphyxiation. Zainab had been strangulated. She had also been assaulted.
Mud, fecal matter, and blood were present. Dr. Atiq estimated that Zainab had been dead for two to three days, meaning she was held captive for up to four days before being murdered. In a later interview, the doctor said she struggled to describe the child’s defiled body.
Public fury erupted into violent protests. Government buildings were attacked, including the district courts, the deputy commissioner’s office, and the district headquarters hospital. During the demonstrations, police opened fire, killing two protesters. The district police officer was reassigned, replaced by Zahid Nawaz Marwat, who launched an intensive search.
Police teams conducted house-to-house inquiries within a 2. 5-kilometer radius. Forensic samples were sent to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency in Lahore. Pakistani celebrities and journalists demanded justice.
A television news presenter delivered a bulletin with her young daughter on her lap to protest violence against children. Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai tweeted that she was heartbroken to hear about Zainab, saying this had to stop and the government must act. Pakistan’s Chief Justice took over the case and directed law enforcement to submit reports. The Punjab Chief Minister visited Zainab’s family, offered a reward for information, and announced the installation of more CCTV cameras.
A joint investigation team was formed. Investigators examined the crime scenes of all twelve girls abducted and murdered in Kasur between 2015 and 2018. They found the same DNA traces on six of the victims. Each was a young girl who disappeared near her home, her body later found buried in rubbish dumps or deserted houses.
Using geo-fencing, they analyzed mobile phone data from the area. They studied CCTV footage and generated a suspect sketch based on eyewitness testimony. One eyewitness, a mason who had fought with the suspect in 2015 when he intervened to save another girl, provided a description. Yet very few in the community came forward.
Nobody admitted recognizing the man in the CCTV footage, even though he lived nearby. Forensic experts collected swabs from Zainab’s body and compared them against thousands of samples. They collected DNA from 1,150 local men. The process pointed to a 24-year-old construction laborer named Imran Ali, who lived less than 100 meters from Zainab’s house.
Neighbors described him as unmarried and from a financially struggling household. His father, a mason, had died about six weeks earlier. He had a younger brother, five sisters, and people said suspicion grew when he shaved his beard shortly after Zainab’s body was found. His own mother and grandmother reportedly acknowledged he was different but did not cooperate until police applied pressure.
They said he had disappeared around the same time as Zainab. Imran was the 814th person whose DNA was tested in the investigation. Police had detained him twice before. He was first held and released on January 9th after claiming heart problems and vomiting during questioning.
Officers did not collect his DNA then, worried about the possibility of a death in custody. On January 19th, he was detained again following intelligence leads. Samples were taken before he was once more released over health concerns. His DNA matched not only Zainab’s samples but also those of at least seven other victims, five of whom were dead.
Two neighbors recalled that Imran would often stand on their rooftop watching the girls at the primary school across the alley. A teacher complained twice, once to Imran’s family and once to another neighbor. That neighbor, a woman with four daughters, saw Imran lingering outside her apartment, gesturing for school girls to approach him. She was alarmed enough to forbid her daughters from playing outdoors.
Imran’s aunt, who had two daughters, said he frequently sat on her rooftop overlooking the school. She told him to move away from the edge so teachers couldn’t see him but didn’t think the behavior was unusual. After his arrest, a video surfaced on social media showing Imran speaking to an all-male audience, shouting religious slogans and giving a short speech praising the Prophet’s daughter for instructing girls to wear veils when leaving their homes. Some community members suggested he used hypnosis, manipulation, or substances to influence the children.
On January 22nd, 2018, Imran was arrested near a shrine in the Pakpattan district. Police said he frequently altered his appearance, sometimes growing a beard, sometimes wearing glasses, changing his clothing. Some of his associates were also taken into custody. During questioning, Imran confessed to assaulting eight boys and girls, killing six of them.
He said he covered the victims’ mouths and pressed down on their heads to silence them, unintentionally killing them through suffocation. He claimed he had experienced abuse in his own childhood and spoke of feeling power and loss of control during his actions. He also blamed poverty. He expressed regret and told investigators he hoped to make amends by helping girls financially with dowries and wedding costs, asking for leniency and a job to carry out that promise.
Imran lived less than 100 meters from Zainab’s home. He had previously visited her family. He had even appeared among those offering condolences after her body was found, and showed up at her funeral. Zainab’s father insisted the killer be publicly hanged, citing a section of Pakistan’s Anti-Terror Act that allows public executions.
Civil society groups demanded a comprehensive strategy to protect children, arguing that a single execution would not solve systemic problems. Imran’s arrest, trial, and sentencing took less than a month. His case was transferred to a special anti-terrorism court in Lahore. The trial lasted four days.
On February 17th, Imran received the death penalty for kidnapping, rape, murder, and committing an act of terror, along with a life sentence for another offense and a substantial fine. In subsequent cases, he was handed a total of 21 death sentences, three life terms, and 23 years of imprisonment, plus fines equivalent to millions in local currency. Zainab’s family was awarded one million rupees in compensation. Zainab’s mother said the sentence was not enough.
She wanted him stoned and executed at the exact spot where her daughter’s body was found. Imran appealed his conviction before the Lahore High Court and the Supreme Court. His appeal attorney found the case suspiciously rushed. He said Imran was promised leniency if he confessed and was told his life and his family’s were in danger from mobs.
The attorney asked for two weeks to prepare, but the judge refused, saying there wasn’t even two hours available. When the case reached the Supreme Court, the hearing lasted just 15 minutes before the death sentence was confirmed. Imran then filed a mercy petition with the president of Pakistan. On October 10th, 2018, President Arif Alvi rejected the plea, clearing the way for execution.
Zainab’s father had appealed for a public hanging twice, but the Lahore High Court ruled that it did not conform to Pakistani law. On October 17th, 2018, Imran was hanged at Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore. He was brought to the gallows shortly before sunrise. He walked calmly and declined to make a final statement, not even to ask for forgiveness.
Zainab’s father was present inside the facility. Afterward, Amin said he felt justice had been served, a sentiment shared by many residents of Kasur. But he lamented that crimes against children continued unabated, repeating his call for stricter laws and better child protection. He noted that Zainab would have been seven years and two months old.
He also said he regretted that the hanging had not been broadcast publicly. After initially fleeing, Imran’s family returned to their home. His grandmother said both families suffered. One lost a daughter, the other a son.
She hesitated to speak openly, fearing backlash, but said only God knew the full truth and that justice would ultimately come from Him. Lawmakers drew inspiration from the U. S. Amber Alert System.
In 2019, members of the National Assembly introduced the Zainab Alert Response and Recovery Act. The bill sought to create an early warning system for missing children, impose strict timelines on police response, establish a national database, and prescribe severe punishment for offenders. After approval in both houses of parliament, the Zainab Alert Response and Recovery Agency, known as Zara, was created. It was tasked with issuing nationwide alerts the moment a child was reported missing and maintaining a national database of all missing and abducted children.
Zara operates a round-the-clock helpline reachable by dialing 1099. Under the law, police must notify Zara within two hours of receiving a missing child report, with disciplinary action possible if they fail. The agency also works with child protection offices, non-governmental groups, and international bodies to support recovery and rehabilitation. Many advocates welcomed the legislation as a major breakthrough, but others noted that its success would depend on proper training, sufficient resources, and a shift in institutional attitudes.
In the days after returning from their pilgrimage, Zainab’s father told reporters he felt abandoned by police and vowed not to bury his daughter until the culprit was caught. But on January 10th, Zainab’s funeral was held in Kasur. Her family received relatives, neighbors, and media at their home. Amin remained calm and attentive despite the tragedy, while Nusrat stayed in her room, grieving privately.
And in Zainab’s notebook, on a page dated January 4th, the day she disappeared, was the assignment she had written in her own hand. The last thing she ever wrote. “I am a girl. My name is Zainab.
My father’s name is Amin. I am 7 years old. I live in Kasur.
”
