PESHAWAR: The police have arrested a young man here for sexually assaulting three minor girls and 1(illing two of them earlier this month.

Provincial Inspector General of Police Moazzam Jah Ansari told reporters at the Central Police Office here on Thursday that the 20-year-old embroiderer had confessed to sexual assaults and murders.

Declaring the accused a serial killer, he said the resident ofSufald Dheri area had committed the crime on Sundays in the cantonment area.

Mr Ansari said the young man sexually assaulted the girls before killing them and dumping the bodies.

He said the accused raped and killed a 10-year-old girl in the Railway Colony area on July 3, sexually assaulted a six-year-old girl in Gulberg area on July 10 and raped and killed the seven-year-old girl in Kali Bari area on July 17 and that those crimes were committed within a five-six kilometres radius.

Mr Ansari said several policeteams were formed to trace and arrest the accused and they examined over 2,000 hours long CCTV footage, geo-fenced at least 10 places,obtained records of hundreds of phone calls and quizzed over 500 suspects.

He said the police took the 20-year-old into custody after carrying out detailed profiling of suspects.

The IGP said the police had trouble tracing the accused as he neither used mobile phone nor did he obtain computerised nationalidentity card.

He also said the accused didn`thave close friends.

Mr Ansari said following assaults on minor girls, the police also deployed plainclothesmen in bazaars, who, along with the CCTV footage, helped track down the accused. He said the DNA of the accused matched with that of his victim from Gulberg area.

The police chief said the first two assault cases provided investigators with leads and the breakthrough came from the Kali Bari case.

`This case was a challenge for us[police] but we successfully dealt with it,` he said.Mr Ansari said the Railway Colony girl had left home to buy grocery on July 3 but didn`t return, so the family began asearch for him and found her strangled with head injury.

He said another girl was found unconscious in Gulberg area on July 10 after being subjected to sexual assault.

The IGP said the Kali Bari girl`s body was found in a mosque on July 17 after she stepped out of her house to deliver launch to her grandfather.

Regarding targeted killing of police personnelin the province, he said both terrorist and criminal groups were involved in the attacks against police.

`Being on the forefront, the police are an easy target for such attacks,` he said.

Mr Ansari said that the police had identified the accused involved in the Wednesday night attack on police in Mattani area of Peshawar.