MUZAFFARABAD: A policeman from Malakand district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was killed in the southern Kotli district of Azad Kashmir, in the wee hours of Saturday, after falling from a slope in an unfamiliar area, in a bid to avoid being noticed by anyone, the police said.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Kotli, Chaudhry Mohammad Amin, told Dawn that the police were informed by some people, early in the morning, that a dead body was lying on the ground near Barali village, on the outskirts of the Kotli city.

The police recovered Rs11,500 cash and a mobile phone from the deceased, identified as a policeman, who was a resident of Batkhela.

With the help of some text messages on the deceased’s phone, the police arrested a couple, married some six months ago, from their house, located hardly 150 metres away from there.

According to the preliminary investigations from the couple and some others taken into custody, the deceased had come from Malakand to ‘spend time’ with the married woman, whom he was having an affair with, for more than one and a half year.

He reached her house at around 10 pm, on Friday night, and stayed with her till 4 am, in the morning.

The woman’s husband Zulfiqar, a taxi driver, had carried some passengers to the town of Dadyal and she assumed that he would not return home.

However, she had also told her spouse that, in case he returned home, he should not disturb her and instead sleep in a separate room, the SSP said, quoting the information given by the couple.

He said that when the, now deceased, policeman left the house of the couple, in the wee hours, he was spotted by some Pathans, extracting gravel from the nearby water channel.

They told the police that they chased him to inquire about his presence in the area, but he ran away and disappeared in the bushes.

It transpired after the sunrise that he had died after falling from a slope.

The SSP said that the woman had confessed that she was in an illicit relationship with him and that he used to visit her occasionally, even before her marriage.

The post-mortem of the deceased was conducted and the police are awaiting its report, the SSP said, adding that a case under section 302 had been registered and further investigations are being conducted.