KARACHI: Police case hinges on suspect’s confession : Couple’s murder
By Tahir Siddiqui
KARACHI, Dec 4: While the police claimed to have solved the murder case of a couple with the arrest of a private security guard, his 15-year-old wife and his brother’s wife as suspects, not a shred of independent evidence has so far been gathered by the investigators to corroborate the confession of the prime suspect.
Thirty-four-year-old Kashif Zamir, a bank employee, and his four-month pregnant wife Mehwish were found shot dead in their house in Khuda Ki Basti on Nov 21. On a tip-off by a ‘special police informer’, the Surjani police nabbed a security guard Asadullah, his wife Rashida and sister-in-law Shakila on Nov 27. However, sources said that police showed the arrests three days after their actual detention.
The 25-year-old guard, who is the prime suspect in the case, allegedly murdered the couple for he believed that his friend raped his wife. He also told the investigators that his wife was too young and weak at the time of their marriage some 15 moths ago and the couple mutually decided not to have a baby for some time.
The suspect told the investigation officer that he took his wife months after their marriage to his hometown where he came to know that she was pregnant. He grew suspicious when he found a photograph of Kashif in her handbag. She told him that Kashif had assaulted her. Rashida later gave birth to a baby who is four months old now.
Following his arrest, police produced the prime suspect, Asadullah, before a judicial magistrate where he volunteered his confessional statement under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
According to the investigation officer Inspector Akbar Narejo, the suspect first shot dead Kashif and then Mehwish. He said the suspects tried to make the double murder look like a suicide by placing a suicide note on the victim’s body. The victims were found lying side by side in their bedroom. Police found a suicide note saying ‘we are killing ourselves on our own’ and a TT pistol on the chest of Kashif.
Contrary to the police claim that the suspect, his wife, sister-in-law and his younger brother Kaleemullah were involved in the double murder, the prime suspect in his judicial confession did not mention his younger brother and his sister-in-law. He said he along with his wife had gone to the victims’ house.
The suspects were also believed to have made the couple drink milk laced with a heavy dose of tranquilizers before Asadullah shot them dead. Inspector Narejo said the police had found a strip of pills from the scene.
However, the investigators still don’t know as to when and where the suspect bought the tranquilizers. “We didn’t have a chance to get this information from the suspect as the most important thing was to get his confessional statement,” said Inspector Narejo.
Similarly, the investigation officer said he had not found any eyewitnesses who might have seen the suspects either enter or come out of the victims’ house on Nov 21.
“We are in the process of collecting evidence that could corroborate the judicial confession of the suspect,” he said and added that he was quite sure that he would find a concrete piece of evidence against the suspect in addition to his confessional statement.
When his attention was drawn to some news reports that suspect Asadullah raped Mehwish before killing her, the IO said he had collected a scarf, apparently stained with semen, from the scene and sent it for a chemical examination. “Similarly, vaginal slides of the victim have also been sent to the laboratory for ascertaining whether or not she was raped,” he added.
A legal expert said that the offence of rape could not be established even if the result of examination of vaginal slides and so-called semen-stained piece of cloth were found positive. “The results cannot establish whose semen that was,” he added.
According to the investigator, the motive behind the double murder was victim Kashif’s alleged assault on the suspect’s wife. However, he said he did not think that a DNA test was required to establish the parentage of the infant.
