The country’s  top court has thrown out the appeal of a convicted child rapist and murderer facing four death sentences for killing a six-year-old Pakistani girl, whose body was found on a rubbish heap in the city of Kasur, early this year.
Imran Ali appealed against the death sentences given to him for the rape and murder of Zainab Fatima Ameen in Kasur, a brutal killing that horrified the country and ignited major riots in his home district.
A post-mortem examination revealed that the girl had died of strangulation. Investigators also found evidence the little girl was tortured.

Ali, 24, was given four death penalties for kidnapping, raping and murdering Zainab, and for committing an act of terrorism punishable under the country’s Anti-Terrorism Act.
Under Pakistani law, crimes that are considered to have spread terror in society can be charged as acts of terrorism.
The suspect has confessed to a total of eight attacks. Only two victims survived the heinous assault of the serial pedophile and child killer. Six of the children including Zainab, were murdered by Ali
As the trial ground on, frustrated and angry citizens took to the streets in protest, burning tires and picketing government buildings demanding justice for the six-year-old. At least two people were killed in the protests.

Tuesday, a panel of three judges at the Supreme Court, Lahore, rejected the convicted murderer’s appeal, and upheld the death penalties given to him by an anti-terrorism court in February this year, reports Dawn.
Ali had appealed to the Lahore High Court against the death sentence but his appeal was dismissed by Justices Asif Saeed Khosa, Manzoor Ahmed Malik and Mansoor Ali Shah.
The suspect had also received life imprisonment and fines totalling$30,000 [3.2 million rupees] for additional charges of hiding his victim’s body.

Zainab was caught on CCTV being led away by a mystery man, and the girl was later found raped and strangled on a rubbish pile about a mile from her home.  Ali lived on a street next to Zainab.
She was the sixth child to have been abducted, raped and murdered in the city of Kasur in the past year, and local police said at the time of her body’s discovery that they believed the multiple killings may have been the work of one perpetrator. The other victims reportedly had also been dumped next to bins.
During the murder trial, which was held in February this year, in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat prison under tight security, Zainab’s mother Nusrat Bibi demanded Ali be executed in public.
‘I want him to be hanged publicly at the place where he took Zainab,’ she told reporters after the verdict.
Zainab’s murder in January sparked outrage across Pakistan, with riots erupting in Kasur as thousands swarmed police stations and set fire to politicians’ homes. Two people were killed in riots in Kasur.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai wrote that she was ‘heartbroken to hear about Zainab’, adding: ‘This has to stop. Gov and the concerned authorities must take action.’
Television stations repeatedly broadcast chilling CCTV footage purportedly showing the young girl walking hand-in-hand with an unidentified male in what may have been her last moments.
An upset presenter Kiran Naz gave SAMAA TV’s news broadcast with her daughter on her lap in a dedication to Zainab, and to show her support for the murdered girl’s mother.
The killing sparked calls for the public execution of Ali after officials said his DNA had been recovered from the scene of the crime and matched samples from similar cases.
At least 12 cases of rape and murder have been recorded in the Kasur area in the past two years.
While Ali has confessed to eight cases, but it is not clear if the four others are linked.
Prior to the recent flood of cases, Kasur was already infamous for sexual abuse, after authorities uncovered a huge pedophilia ring in the city in 2015.
At least 280 children were sexually abused on camera by men who later blackmailed their families, threatening to leak the footage.