The girl, A*, went to a shop in Mianda Kot village Tuesday evening but didn’t return home. When the subsequent search failed, the worried family reported the incident to the local police. However, the ‘slacking police’ did not make much effort to find the girl. On Wednesday, her body was found in a field near Vaneki Road.Following the grisly discovery, a police contingent reached the spot and shifted the body to the District Headquarters Hospital. According to officials, the killer had criminally assaulted the girl before stoning her to death. The police registered a case and launched a manhunt for the killer.Incensed by the harrowing incident, hundreds of people, including the girl’s family and relatives, took the body to Fawara Chawk and staged a protest against the police. They claimed that the tragedy could have been averted if the police had taken action on Tuesday night. They demanded the killer be arrested immediately and tried in a military court.Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif took notice of the tragic incident and directed authorities to submit a report within 24 hours.In a similar incident, a toddler was ‘criminally assaulted’ and then tortured to death in Mumtazabad Colony of Multan.The less than three years’ old M* had crawled out of her house while her mother was sleeping. The toddler was later found critically wounded. She was rushed to the Nishtar Hospital where she died early Wednesday morning.According to officials, the initial autopsy confirmed torture, including a slit throat. The report said the child died due to excessive bleeding. “The body is badly mutilated due to torture. However, we have taken samples to establish rape,” one of the medics told The Express Tribune.The police registered a case and recorded the statements of the family and eyewitnesses.(*Names of the victims have been changed to protect their identities)Published in The Express Tribune, January 8, 2015.