Karachi, September 12, 2025: Police arrested a man accused of sexually assaulting dozens of young girls in Karachi’s Qayyumabad neighbourhood on Thursday after enraged residents caught and thrashed him before handing him over to law enforcement.
The suspect, identified as Shabbir Ahmed, originally from Abbottabad, had been living in Karachi since 2016, working as a soft drink vendor, according to District South SSP Mahzoor Ali. He was residing in a rented one-room house in Qayyumabad.
The SSP confirmed that three cases have been registered against the accused within a week. During initial interrogation, Ahmed allegedly confessed to abusing 60–70 girls and admitted to filming the assaults. Police recovered over 100 objectionable videos from his mobile phone, which have been sent for forensic analysis.
Authorities said efforts were underway to trace the victims through the recovered footage. One complainant reported that his two daughters were among the victims. “My daughters told me that the man, a seller of soft drinks, committed an immodest act with them and also filmed it,” the father stated.
Child abuse remains a persistent issue in Pakistan. According to Sahil’s “Cruel Numbers 2023” report, an average of 11 children were abused every day last year, with 4,213 cases of child sexual abuse, abduction, missing children, and child marriages reported across the country, including AJK, GB, and ICT.
In a separate recent incident, police in Lahore’s Hanjarwal area arrested the principal of a private school on charges of inappropriate conduct with an 11-year-old student.
