ISLAMABAD: The former wife of Ayaz Amir got post arrest bail in the murder case of Canadian national Sarah Inam.

Sameena Shah is the mother of prime suspect in the murder case, Shahnawaz Amir. She was arrested on Oct 20 after additional district and sessions judge (ADSJ) dismissed her pre-arrest bail plea.

ADSJ Sheikh Sohail, earlier this week, reserved the decision on her bail plea. He accepted the bail application against Rs1 million surety bonds. Samina Shah has been cited as an accused in the murder of Sarah Inam along with her son Shahnawaz Amir, the principal accused in the case. Her ex-husband Ayaz Amir was also nominated as the accused in the case, however, the court discharged him after initial proceeding.

Shah’s counsel Arsal Amjad Hashmi argued that she cooperated with police and enabled arrest of the principal accused and her only mistake was that she was present at her farmhouse – the crime scene – of the murder.

According to the counsel, the only evidence against Sameena was that her finger prints were present at the crime scene, which the police procured during investigation. Counsel for the father of the deceased Rao Abdul Rahim argued that the postmortem report of the deceased had disclosed that Sarah was murdered about 12-24 hours before the procedure was performed.

Referring to Sameena’s statement, the counsel said Sarah met her on the ill-fated night and probably wanted to tell her about her troubles. He also questioned shutdown of the CCTV system two days before the incident.

Opposing her bail plea, advocate Rao said her role would be established after a thorough probe. The first information report (FIR) against Shahnawaz was filed at Islamabad’s Chak Shahzad police station. The FIR was registered under Section 302 (punishment for murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) on the complaint of Station House Officer (SHO) Nawazish Ali Khan.

The complaint stated that on Sept 23, the suspect’s mother Sameena Shah called the police and informed them that Shahnawaz had murdered his wife “with a dumbbell”.

However, the police implicated Shah and her former husband Ayaz Amir in this case as well.

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2022