KARACHI: While neighbours of a young woman who died recently under mysterious circumstances in Gulistan-i-Jauhar accused her husband of murdering her, area police believed that it was a case of suicide since the woman jumped from her fourth-floor apartment.

On October 9, Khushi alias Saima, 24, was brought to a private hospital in Gulistan-i-Jauhar in critical condition. She died late on Monday night during treatment.

From the private hospital, the body was taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for a post-mortem examination. A lady medico-legal officer asked the police to call the deceased’s heirs in order to fulfil legal formalities.

The police approached the victim’s mother, Yasmin Banu, and her two brothers, Noman and Salman, who reached the hospital.

Family members have not approached police for FIR

“It took them [the heirs] two hours to decide that they [did not want] doctors to conduct an autopsy,” said Sharea Faisal police officer Mohammad Rizwan.

The officer said that he went to the JPMC after he was informed by the in-charge of the police post at the private hospital that a woman had allegedly jumped from a flat and died during treatment.

He said that her family gave an undertaking to the police that they did not want a post-mortem examination.

He said that it was the second marriage of the deceased woman. She had two kids from her previous marriage and had a five-month-old child from her second husband, Zeeshan, with whom she tied the knot as per her free will, he added.

The police officer told Dawn that she had left her husband’s house and stayed at her uncle’s home in Old Golimar.

He said on Oct 3, her husband and his mother visited the Sharea Faisal police station and requested the police to help bring back home his wife who left her five-month-old baby although he was sick and needed mother’s milk.

The officer told them that it was not a police matter. Two days later, they visited the police station again with the same request but they were told that it was not a criminal case and the police could not help them.

The officer recalled that Zeeshan also phoned his estranged wife in his presence from the police station. Subsequently, they visited her uncle’s home and reportedly managed to bring her back, he added.

The officer said that her neighbours staged a protest demonstration in Gulistan-i-Jauhar in which they alleged that Khushi was thrown from her apartment’s balcony by her husband and it was not a case of suicide.

However, SP Gulshan Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto told media that an inspection of the scene of the incident suggested that it could not be possible for anyone to throw someone from that balcony.

Police officer Rizwan told Dawn that till date none of the deceased’s heirs had approached the police for registration of a criminal case or expressed concern that she was murdered.

He said it appeared that the protest was backed by the union of the apartment complex, as some office bearers had asked Zeeshan to vacate the apartment but he refused to do so.

“The union men may have orchestrated the protest to get the flat vacated from the family,” he opined.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2017