PESHAWAR, April 27: A team of Rawalpindi police here on Tuesday recorded statements of a number of people in connection with the death of a woman due to severe burn injuries. The two-member team headed by ASI Naimat Ali of the Chontra police station visited the University Town police station, burns unit of the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and Akbarpura, the ancestral village of the victim, Shakila Zaffar.

She had received severe burn injuries on April 1 in the house of her husband Zafar Iqbal in Rawalpindi.

She was shifted to Peshawar by her family in a critical condition and admitted to the KTH where she died on April 11.

After pressure from different NGOs, the Rawalpindi police registered an FIR under section 302 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code. The husband of the woman, his mother Zamurud and sister-in-law Sobia have been nominated in the FIR.

The visiting police team recorded statement of the in-charge of casualty ward of the KTH, Khan Shah, who stated that he had recorded statement of the victim who had accused her husband and his sister-in-law of sprinkling kerosene on her and setting her on fire.

The police team also recorded statement of the brother of the deceased and met the doctor concerned and other staff of the hospital.

The team informed human rights groups that the accused persons would be arrested after completion of investigation and when they (police) became sure that they had set the woman on fire.

It added that in her initial statement given in Rawalpindi, the victim had said that she had been accidentally burnt and she had not accused anybody of burning her. The case of Shakila has been brought to limelight by an NGO, Award, and later other human rights groups of Peshawar and Rawalpindi.