RAWALPINDI: A suspect in the murder of a 24-year-old woman was formally arrested on Wednesday, after being released from the District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital.

The suspect was initially captured by police on Saturday, while trying to escape from a building by climbing down a drain pipe.

The investigator will get a DNA profile of the suspect, to help identify the perpetrator and will summon the family of the deceased woman, who died after falling from the third storey of a commercial building in Bahria Town Phase 8.

Samples from the deceased’s body have already been sent to Lahore for chemical analysis.

Five days after her death, police have not been able to uncover the circumstances under which the woman, who befriended the suspect — Umair Makki — three years ago, died.

“Police will get a DNA profile of the suspect, to verify whether the girl was sexually assaulted, though the initial medical report could not find any such evidence,” Sub-Inspector (SI) Zaheeruddin Babar, the investigation officer, told Dawn.

Mr Babar said the cause of death was stated by doctors to be ‘head injuries’, and added that he would call the case complainants for investigation soon.

According to Mr Babar, the suspect said that after his parents took a marriage proposal to the woman’s family and were refused, Mr Makki and the deceased had planned to get a court marriage. Mr Makki also claimed the two were already married, but could not produce any evidence.

The suspect claimed that the woman’s parents arranged her marriage to someone living in the UK, and that they would be married in January next year.

He said the deceased tried to convince him to get a court marriage, but he wanted to get married the proper way.

Mr Babar said the two moved to the building in Bahria Town after checking out from a four star hotel in Islamabad on November 20.

He said they also bought a two person meal from a restaurant on Friday night.

The police, who have been treating the girl’s death as ‘suspicious’, had already obtained forensic evidence from the apartment where Mr Makki and the deceased had been staying, and had also examined the scene. No one from the public or building security had come forward to help the police with their investigation.

Other than a music system and a few cigarette butts, no household furniture or items were found at the apartment.

Mr Makki, a Vihari resident, received fractures in his foot and hipbone and was discharged from the DHQ hospital on Wednesday.

He will be produced before the court on Thursday for remand custody.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2015