PPP lawmaker Shahnaz Ansari, who was shot dead in Sindh's Naushahro Feroze district a day earlier, was laid to rest on Sunday.

Her funeral prayers were offered in the grounds of the high school in Naushahro Feroze and attended by lawmakers and leaders of the PPP.

Naushahro Feroze Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Mohammad Farooq later told reporters that police had made some arrests.

“We had some meetings with the complainants. Some suspects they told us about [and] we had some information of our own, on the basis of which we made some arrests.”

The SSP, however, did not confirm or deny whether an FIR has been registered. According to the deceased’s family, an FIR has not been registered yet.

The SSP denied that Ansari had asked them for security saying, “this practice has ended sometime before of providing security to parliamentarians […] but if she had asked us for security, we would have provided it to her.”

He was responding to a claim made by the slain MPA’s husband a day earlier that he and his wife had visited the SSP some days ago and given him an application seeking security. He said that "the MPA used to come to us frequently as she was a political personality, she came 3-4 days ago too but I don’t have any idea about the doctor [victim's husband].”

According to sources, Ansari had informed the local authorities about a month ago that her late brother-in-law Dr Zahid Khokhar’s family was threatening her of dire consequences because she was resisting their efforts to forcibly occupy the agriculture land meant for her widowed sister and her children.

Police on Saturday had said the slain lawmaker had gone to her late brother-in-law’s village, Murad Khokhar, along with a sister to attend his chehlum, where a heated argument broke out and she was fired upon by a relative of her brother-in-law. They said her widowed sister had a property dispute with the family of her late husband.

Ansari sustained bullet injuries in her abdomen and was transported to the Peoples Medical University Hospital, Nawabshah, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

According to sources, she had written a letter to the commissioner, deputy commissioner and the SSP concerned (whose copy had been forwarded to the speaker of Sindh Assembly), alleging that Akhtar Ali Khokhar, his brothers and his son, Akhtiar Khokhar, were harassing her widowed sister and her.

The letter, seen by Dawn on Saturday, said Dr Zahid Hussain Khokhar, husband of the MPA’s sister passed away on January 5 2020 due to some natural causes at his home.

The late Dr Khokhar had reportedly transferred all his properties to his widow and their children in his life.

“Now, Akhtar Ali Khokhar, his brothers and his son, Akhtiar Khokhar are threatening and harassing me and my widow sister that they will murder us and children of late Dr Zahid Hussain Khokhar,” said the letter.

The MPA had urged the authorities concerned that this statement of hers may be kept in their office record and necessary legal action may be taken against the said persons “to save our lives.”

The late MPA was an active PPP member and was elected on a reserved seat.

She leaves behind a husband, two sons and three daughters.