Wife among suspects arrested in Iraqi embassy staffer’s murder case

ISLAMABAD: Kohsar police arrested two persons on the charge of murdering a visa section officer of the Iraqi embassy.

The victim’s wife was among those arrested.

According to the police, the deceased was identified as Mohammad Shakeel, a resident of Bhara Kahu, who worked with the Iraqi embassy in Islamabad. A case was registered with Kohsar police against unidentified person(s) on Nov 14 in response to a complaint lodged by the victim’s brother, Abdul Hamid.

Station House Officer (SHO) of Kohsar police Sub-Inspector (SI) Shabbir Tanoli told Dawn that the victim’s wife had alleged that they were sitting near Daman-i-Koh when two persons appeared on the scene and dragged her husband into the wooded area.

After a while, she heard gunshots and when she rushed into the woods, she found her husband dead with a bullet injury to his head, the SI added.

The woman also claimed that the two attackers snatched a purse and three rings from them, the SHO said, adding that however, when an amount of Rs50,000 was recovered from the victim, doubts arose about the woman’s statement about the incident.

During the investigation, the police confiscated the woman’s mobile phone over suspicion and during investigation, it was revealed that the victim and the woman were first cousins and were natives of Mansehra, SI Tanoli said, adding that they had married three weeks ago.

He said on examining the woman’s mobile phone, they found a message on Snapchat from a man which further raised our suspicion.

The investigators then picked up the man for interrogation and confiscated his mobile phone as well, Tanoli said, adding that, “they also found the woman’s message on Snapchat and on probing him, the suspect revealed that he and the woman wanted to marry, but she had been forced into marrying the victim.

The woman was in distress over her marriage against her will and told the suspect that she was thinking of committing suicide, Mr Tanoli quoted the suspect as saying.

“However, the suspect told her to murder her husband instead and offered to help her in it,” he said, adding that they planned the murder and the woman brought her husband to Daman-i-Koh where he attacked him.

“During the scuffle between them, the suspect fired at Shakeel, which caused his death on the spot,” SI Tanoli said, adding that after his confession, the police arrested the woman and both will be produced in court on Thursday (today) to seek their physical remand.