November 20, 2002	Wednesday	Ramazan 14, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 19: Police have registered a murder case against a man on charges of burning his wife to death and also charged his father and brother with hiding the facts.

Ehsan Ullah, the husband of Mumtaz Bibi, lost his job as a mechanic in the motorway project when the construction work was finished. He got married in May 2002 before he lost his job.

Sub-Inspector Ahmed Kamal, who had been investigating Mumtaz Bibi’s death, said she was shifted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences on November 4 with 95 per cent burns.

In her statement recorded with Magistrate Ajmal Bukhari, she said she was burnt after a gas cylinder exploded while cooking in her house at Dhoke Suleman (I-9). She died in the hospital after two days and her body was handed over to her parents for burial in their native town.

Earlier, in the wake of her statement, it was presumed by the police that she had been burnt accidentally, the investigation officer said.

He added that Mumtaz Bibi’s father, Abdul Wahid, approached the capital police three days after her funeral. He claimed that his daughter was doused with kerosene oil and set on fire by her husband, while his father and brother kept the incident secret, the police said.

The victim’s father continued knocking at the doors of senior officers of the federal territory police to get justice. He finally succeeded in his efforts on November 18, when the I-9 police registered an FIR.