HYDERABAD: The burnt body of a woman was found in her car parked at a place on the outskirts of the city in the early hours of Thursday. The Husri police believed the victim was Saira Naseer, a provincial women wing leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F).

They also believed that she was murdered before being set alight.

Initial police investigation suggested that Ms Naseer, who must be in her early 50s, was present at her residence in Defence Phase-II, Hyderabad, until Wednesday evening. Her family lost contact with her afterwards. Her body in her 2015 model Toyota Corolla car bearing registration number BEY-572 was found at around 3.30am. Besides the body, lying on the back seat of the car, a lighter, a bottle containing some inflammable fluid, two gold rings she used to wear and two mobile phones were found in the vehicle.

The body was shifted to the city branch of the Liaquat University Hospital (LUH).

“It is purely a murder ... she [was] murdered somewhere else before being burnt alive [in the car],” said Hyderabad SSP Pir Mohammad Shah while talking to Dawn. He said that had she been burnt in the car, she would have tried to flee, but findings at the scene of the offence point to no such attempt. Whosoever has committed the crime is for sure quite close to her, according to the police officer.

“We are obtaining her mobile phones’ call data record (CDR) to analyse the recent incoming and outgoing calls,” he said.

In reply to a question that how the police believed that it was Saira Naseer’s body, the SSP said that she had been unaccounted for and her mobile phones were switched off for quite some time.

Zaheer Ahmed, her second husband, while talking to Dawn said that he had divorced her about four years back. She had a son, Fahad, from Zaheer. Zaheer said his children were not ready to accept that it was their mother’s body. “But I am 100 per cent sure it is Saira. The gold rings she used to wear are also found,” he said.

Saira Naseer was a resident of the Saddar area and had recently moved to her Defence residence. According to Zaheer, their younger son, Fahad, had met her on Wednesday night at the Defence residence. “She told him to park the car in the bungalow as someone was coming to examine it with intention to buy it,” he said, adding that since then, there was no contact with her.

It’s learnt that the location of the victim’s mobile phone at 1.15am was found in the Husri area.

Ms Naseer was elected to the district council in 2001 party-less elections as an independent candidate.

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2017