Police officials in the northern province of Kunduz have arrested three people for allegedly raping a seven-year-old girl in Khan Abad district of the province. 
 
The incident took place ten days ago after a father, his son and another man allegedly kidnapped the girl from the Khan Abad bazaar, raped her and murdered her before throwing her body in a ditch, said a Kunduz police headquarter's official. 
 
“I took her to the bathroom, then I left the house, locked the door and asked my friend to stay there,” said one of the suspects, Sayed Kamal during a police interview. 
 
“We put a scarf around her neck and pulled it from both sides, the girl was then dead,” another suspect Mohammadullah said.
 
Meanwhile, the victim’s family have asked the Afghan legal and judicial institutions to ensure justice is served. 
 
“The government must punish the criminals according to the law, they raped a seven-year-old girl and killed her,” said the child's father.
 
The Kunduz police chief said forensic tests show that the criminals had raped the girl.
 
“The seven-year-old girl was selling milk when she disappeared and then her body was found in a ditch three days later; forensic tests show that she had been raped; three individuals have been arrested in connection with the crime and they have confessed,” said Kunduz police chief Abdul Hamid Hamid.
 
There have been instances in the past regarding violence against children in the province - which has led human rights activists to blast the Afghan legal and judicial bodies for not implementing the law on perpetrators involved in such crimes.