KARACHI: A sexagenarian man was found brutally murdered in his Saddar apartment on Friday, police said.

They said that he was allegedly murdered by a 40-year-old woman, who had been living with the victim for the past several years.

Preedy SHO Sajjad Khan said that the building watchman saw a severed hand outside the apartment of Shaikh Muhammad Sohail at Ilaco House in State Life Building No 5, off Abdullah Haroon Road, and he informed other residents and police about it.

The SHO said police reached the apartment, located on the mezzanine floor of the building, where they saw the decapitated body of Shaikh Muhammad Sohail, 65, lying on the floor. They found the severed head and hands in a box in the same room.

Police find victim’s severed head, hands in a box

As the news of the murder spread in the neighbourhood, fear gripped residents when they came to know about the horrifying details.

A woman, identified as Rubab, 40, was sleeping in the next room and she appeared to be intoxicated when police woke her up.

Neighbours told the police that she was living with the man and claimed that she was his wife. “As per witnesses, the couple usually quarrelled with each other over some domestic issues,” said the SHO.

The woman was taken into custody and the police called the victim’s son, Shaikh Shahid, and other relatives. The body was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre to fulfil medico-legal formalities.

The policemen called the Crime Scene Unit, which secured the evidence.

Additional Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed said the head was smashed with a hammer or some hard and blunt object as there were three fractures. He was decapitated and hands were also severed.

She said the suspect was also brought to the hospital for a medical examination. She was ‘very aggressive’ and told the doctors that she had taken ‘ice’, or crystal meth, in the night.

Dr Syed said the relatives accompanying the body claimed that the victim was a doctor and Rubab was a nurse at his clinic.

However, the SHO said his relatives told him that the victim, father of eight, that the woman had been living with their father for the past six/seven years, but they did not know their exact relation.

The SHO said a girl child was also living with the couple. The suspect claimed that she was the daughter of the deceased. But the victim’s son told the police that when they had asked for a DNA, the suspect did not allow it.

Sources said that the woman in her initial statement said that both of them were addicted to ‘ice’. She initially confessed to have killed him saying the man used to torture her, but later on changed her statement, they added.

Meanwhile, a murder case under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code was registered against the held woman, Rubab alias Sonia alias Asma, on the complaint of the victim’s son, Sheikh Mohammed Shahid, who is a private contractor by profession.

The complainant told the police that he was informed about the murder by people living in his father’s building. He said when he reached the apartment he saw the body of his father lying in a store-like room with severed head and hands.

He said that he believed that his father was killed by Rubab, who had been living with his father for years.

Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2021