• March 5, 2009
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By Tahir Siddiqui
KARACHI: A young man was arrested along with his two brothers on Wednesday for killing his 25-year-old wife, whom he had married against the consent of his family four months ago in Orangi Town.
Elsewhere, three people were shot dead in separate acts of violence across the city.
The Pirabad police said that the suspects strangled the woman four days ago and dumped her body in an underground water tank in their house in Sector 5-E, Orangi Town.
They said that Mohammed Zahid, a cable operator by profession, had married Asifa Naz, also a resident of the same locality, for love four months ago.
The police said a case (FIR 129/2009) against Zahid and his brothers, Khalid and Rashid, was registered under Sections 302 (intentional murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of the victim’s brother, Ziaur Rehman.
The area SHO, Inspector Akhtar Bangash, told Dawn that the suspects claimed that the woman had gone missing. “The suspects kept on searching for the ‘missing’ woman along with her brother,” he added.
The police official said that the victim’s brother went to the house of his sister’s in-laws on Wednesday morning and became suspicious when he detected a foul smell in the house.
He said that the victim’s brother reported the matter to the police, who recovered the body from the underground water reservoir with the help of Chhipa Trust volunteers.
Inspector Bangash said that the family was apparently not using the water from the underground tank, as it was filled to the brim.
A large number of area residents gathered outside the house and became enraged when the body was recovered. However, a heavy contingent of police averted what could have been an untoward situation by immediately taking the suspects into their custody.
Later, the body was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for a post-mortem examination.
Sources at the hospital’s medico-legal section told Dawn that the woman had been strangled and a mark of strangulation was visible around her neck.
The police said that Khalid, a school teacher who is married with two children, was the oldest among the brothers, and Rashid, a printing press employee, was the youngest. They said that the three brothers were living with their families and their widowed mother in the house.
The police quoted the neighbours as telling them that the victim was maltreated by her in-laws, who were apparently upset by the coupleÂ’s ‘love marriage’.
The victim’s brother, Ziaur Rehman, told Dawn that Asifa was the youngest among five siblings and that she had been married on October 29, 2008.
He said that his sister’s in-laws never accepted her because Zahid had married her without the consent of his family. “They [Zahid’s family] continued to torment my sister on and off since the marriage,” he alleged.
He said that he searched for his sister for four days. “Today I visited a faith-healer who gave me a talisman saying that it must be placed at the house of the missing person,” he added.
The victim’s brother said that he reached the locality at around 9am when he saw his brother-in-law sitting at a shop. “I went to him and told him about the talisman. But in the meantime, he received a call on his mobile phone and told me that he was rushing home as his mother was not feeling well,” he said.
Ziaur Rehman said that he then joined his brother-in-law to visit her. “I felt a stink emanating out of the water tank with its cover removed,” he added.
Source: Dawn
Date:3/5/2009