Police in Sialkot have arrested four people for the horrifying murder of Zara Bibi, who was killed and chopped into pieces over suspicions of witchcraft and black magic by her in-laws.
As per the details, body of the victim, who was pregnant at the time, was allegedly dismembered by her mother-in-law Sughran Bibi, among others; stuffed into sacks and disposed of in a drain.
While police had launched an investigation into the death of the 30-year-old soon after the remains were discovered, a media campaign had prompted authorities to act swiftly and take the case to its logical conclusion.
An FIR was registered against five accused. The police had first arrested Abdullah, Sughran’s grandson. He was named in the FIR on the basis of suspicion. After his confession, Sughran, her daughter Yasmin Bibi, and a relative named Mohammad Naveed were taken into custody.
All four suspects confessed to the murder, police said.
INVESTIGATION
Sialkot Police spokesperson Waqas Ali said that local police took action on the request of Shabbir Ahmed, the victim’s father, and after the registration of a case, the in-laws were interrogated.
He said that the mother-in-law confessed to the crime and shared details of the horrific incident. The knife used in the murder was recovered as well.
The investigation officer quoted Sughran as revealing that she first strangulated Zara in her sleep with the help of the victim’s sister-in-law and another relative, Naveed, who was called in from Lahore. The mother-daughter duo even paid him ten thousand rupees.
After dismembering the body, Naveed went back to Lahore while the mother-in-law, with the help of her daughter and grandson, threw the body in the drain.
The postmortem report also confirmed that the victim was killed by suffocation with the body cut into pieces with a sharp instrument after death.
The accused hid the evidence after cutting the body into five pieces and stuffing in into sacks and plastic bags. The sacks were then thrown far from one another to build mystery around Zara’s disappearance amid hopes that the body was never discovered.
After the confession, police, rescue personnel and locals started searching for the pieces of Zara’s body. Even after extensive research, only two sacks were found.
Rescue officials revealed that the head and arms of the victim were cut off and put in separate shopping bags. The torso was also cut into two and sealed in two separate sacks.
THE MURDER
Zara was married to Qadeer Ahmed, her cousin and a resident of Kotli Meeran in Daska, four years ago. The couple had a two-year-old son.
Zara’s father, Shabbir Ahmed, who is also the complainant in the case, told a private media outlet that she had recently returned from Saudi Arabia after meeting her husband. She had been living with her father since; however, she had returned to her in-laws’ house three days before the incident upon her mother-in-law’s insistence.
On the morning of November 10, he tried to call his daughter multiple times but no one answered, Shabbir said, adding that he decided to go and check after he also received a call from Zara’s husband, who said that his nine-month pregnant wife was unreachable.
Zara’s father immediately went to her in-laws to inquire about her well-being, where he was told that she was not at home.
“As soon as I entered the main door of the house, I started calling Zara by her name, upon which Zara’s sister-in-law told me that she was not at home. When I asked where she had gone to, Sughran said, ‘What do we know? She must have run away with jewellery and money.”
“My sixth sense told me that something very bad had happened,” said Shabbir, who himself is an assistant sub-inspector in Punjab Police.
He recalled noticing that Zara’s two-and-a-half-year-old son was also at home and that the whole house had been swept clean. “The house was unusually clean and the floor was washed up.”
“Seeing this made my heart sink. I immediately called my elder brother and dialled 15 to call local police,” he said and revealed that an attempt to kill his daughter had also been made in the past.
Shabbir told the media that his late wife had fixed their daughter’s marriage to her nephew in her lifetime. After marriage, Qadeer and Zahra had a good relationship, but her maternal aunt and mother-in-law often accused the deceased of having “cast a spell” on her son, which often led to fights in the house.
The accused also told the police that her son was very caring towards his wife, and he used to send money directly to her account, which was not acceptable to the mother-in-law. With the victim pregnant again, the primary accused believed that her son would be “completely under the control” of the daughter-in-law.
“I will never forgive the accused. I will ensure that justice is served,” Shabbir said, adding that after his wife’s death, Zara was the only anchor in is life.
The police also suggested in their report that Sughran has six daughters and only one son, and she, as well as her six daughters, were jealous of Zara because she was living abroad with her husband, who cared for her. She thought that her son had been taken away by her daughter-in-law, which led to domestic fights.
