Pakistan hangs man for 6-year-old Zainab’s rape and murder

Pakistan has executed the man convicted in the rape and murder of six-year-old Zainab Ansari, reports BBC news.

Imran Ali, who was arrested after Zainab’s body was found in a garbage dump, was executed in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat prison in the presence of Zainab’s father and other relatives early on Wednesday, police said.

Imran was a serial killer of eight children. He was executed after the country's top court rejected requests for his public hanging. After his arrest, Imran confessed to the other slayings and was convicted, according to the Khaleej Times, a Pakistan-based newspaper.

The case, the most heinous in a string of similar child murders in the city of Kasur, had sparked outrage and protests in the country.

Zainab's father, Amin Ansari, said after the execution that he was "satisfied".

"I have seen his awe-inspiring end with my own eyes. They dropped him on the gallows, and let his body hang for half an hour," he told reporters.

However Ansari, who said that Zainab would have been 7 years and 2 months old if she was alive, expressed regret that authorities did not televise the hanging.

Zainab disappeared on Jan 4 and her body was found five days later in a rubbish dump.

Police said there had been several similar child murders in the past two years in Kasur but her killing proved to be a tipping point.