Some of the evidence of the Ranipur murder case was deleted before the arrest of suspects, sources within police told Aaj News on Saturday.

The police have collected the digital forensic evidence (DVR), they said, but added that all the proofs of the case were already deleted.

The Ranipur murder case is about the killing of a nine-year-old girl, Fatima Furro. She was found dead on August 13 in Asad Shah’s mansion in the Ranipur taluka of Khairpur district in Sindh.

She worked as a maid in Shah’s house and was buried without a post-mortem examination. Her body was later exhumed for a post-mortem examination where police said that she was raped before she died.

Read: Ranipur maid murder: Katcha dacoits issue threats to Fatima Fariro’s family

On September 28, an antiterrorism court in Khairpur remanded Hina Shah, her husband Asad, and her father Fayyaz Shah in police and judicial custody for eight days in the case.

The investigation into the case was still under way.

According to sources, the data deleted from the DVR could not be recovered. They accused the prime suspect of removing all the data from his laptop prior to his arrest or the release of one of the CCTV footage to the victim’s family.

Moreover, Shah’s phone was locked after he tried the wrong PIN code multiple times to unlock his phone. The police were not able to crack the phone in Karachi.

Digital forensic experts were of the view that the phone data could be deleted if they tried to crack the PIN code.

Child rights activists have demanded justice in the case while reminding the people that the victim’s name was not just a “hashtag”.

Child labour and slavery required a collaborative effort involving government agencies, law enforcement, civil society, and the media, Punjab Child Protection Bureau Chairperson Sarah Ahmed.