Justice for Zainab: Anchor presents news with daughter on her lap to protest 8-year-old's rape and murder

The rape and murder of eight-year-old Zainab Ansari in Pakistan's Kasur has seen protests erupt across the country, demanding justice for the little girl.

However, Samaa TV's news anchor Kiran Naz chose a novel method to address the issue. The TV presenter delivered the news segment on 10 January evening with her toddler daughter on her lap, conveying a mother's fear and anxiety about leaving her child at home when she leaves for work.

"Today I am not Kiran Naz. Today I am a mother. That's why I am sitting with my daughter," Naz said.

In her two-minute-long monologue, the anchor talked only about Zainab and the pain that her parents must be going through. She also spoke about her frustration at the slow pace of the administration which had failed to catch the suspect. "I have nothing else to talk about today, except Zainab," Naz said on her programme.

While Zainab's parents were on a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia and buying toys for their little girl, "a monster in Pakistan was raping her and throwing her body" into a rubbish pile, she said. Ending her monologue on a very emotional note, Naz said that it was not Zainab but the whole of humanity that had died that day.

"It is true that a child's corpse is the heaviest. Today Pakistan is buried beneath the burden of the little one's janaza (funeral)..." she added.

The video of Naz's emotional speech was shared on Twitter by Samaa TV's Omar R Quraishi, NDTV reported.

Zainab's body was discovered some 2km away from her home by passers-by on Tuesday, 9 January, five days after she was kidnapped on 4 January. Since then, protests have erupted across the country demanding justice for her.

People's anger turned ugly after a CCTV footage surfaced online showing the last moments of Zainab as she is being led by a man, who is believed to have raped her and dumped her body on a pile of rubbish.

The girl was on her way to a Quran recital when a man approached her, grabbed her by the hand and led her away.

Zainab's father Ameen Ansari has said that he will "not bury Zainab until the killer is caught".

"I have nothing to say, I just want justice for my daughter," her mother was quoted as saying.

Several celebrities in Pakistan, including former cricket sensation Imran Khan, have called on the police to arrest the suspect quickly. A hashtag #JusticeforZainab has also started trending on social media.

Local media reports say that police suspect that the man who raped and murdered Zainab is the same person who abducted, raped and murdered five other children in the city of Kasur in 2017.