A special team has been formed to probe the brutal murder of a Hindu woman in Sindh’s Sanghar district, Shaheed Benazirabad Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Muhammad Younis Chandio said on Friday.

Shirimati Dhaya Bheel, a 40-year-old widow, was found brutally murdered in a mustard field in the Sinjhoro taluka of Sanghar on Tuesday. Her body was found by a watercourse near the fields.

Subsequently, a first information report (FIR) of the crime was registered on Dec 28.

On Friday, DIG Chandio told Dawn.com that a special police team — led by Sanghar Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Bashir Ahmed Brohi — had been constituted to investigate the murder.

He said the team had been “strictly directed to make sincere efforts” for the arrest of the culprits and visit his office in seven days with “result-oriented progress”.

The official said tracker dogs were also being used for the investigation. “They traced us to the home of a close relative of the victim. But we don’t want to jump to any conclusions,” he told Dawn.com

“We are committed to probing the case in every possible aspect before reaching any final conclusion,” he said, adding that so far, 30 people had been interrogated but no formal arrests had been made.

DNA samples of several persons had also been taken for investigation purposes.

Chandio also said that he had personally visited the crime scene and met the deceased’s heirs and village elders. “She lived in a far-flung village namely Deputy and was the mother of five children.”

He opined that he did not think that the victim was targeted for being a member of a minority community, suspecting that the murder might be motivated by some “personal enmity or some psychopaths might be involved”.

The FIR

Earlier, the victim’s son told Dawn.com that the incident occurred in Deputy goth near Sinjhoro town, some 20 kilometres from Sanghar.

The police have registered a first information report (FIR) on Chand’s complaint at the Sinjhoro police station under Section 302 (Punishment of qatl-i-amd) of the Pakistan Penal Code and sections 6 (terrorism) and 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

In the complaint, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, Somar Chand said he worked as a sugarcane cutter for a landlord in the area and was in the fields the day the murder took place, while his mother and little sister had gone to cut and collect grass.

When he returned home, Chand found his sister crying with no sign of his mother, the FIR stated.

“Upon inquiry, his sister said the two had found a relative of theirs and Dhaya had asked him to help them carry the grass. On their way back, Dhaya went to the fields again for another heap of grass but did not return.”

When Chand went to the fields with his relatives to search for his mother, he found her body near a watercourse, the complaint said.

It added that Dhaya’s “head was cut with a sharp object, her skin was peeled off from her body [and] breast was cut off”, adding that the gathered relatives informed the police and brought the body to a hospital for an autopsy.

Condemnation

The murder triggered an outcry on social media.

Chief Minister’s Special Assistant for Human Rights MPA Surendar Valasai said the “brutal murder of Dhaya Bheel has shaken everybody”.

He said the Sindh government, under the instructions of party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, was “doing its best to bring the culprits to justice”.

“Shaheed Benazirabad DIG Younus Chandio is himself monitoring the investigations and it’s hoped that culprits will be ferreted out soon and tried under ATA. It’s an inhuman and beastly act which will never go unpunished,” Valasai added.

Meanwhile, PPP Senator Krishna Kumari also condemned the incident and visited the village with police officials.

Sindh Minister for Minorities Affairs Giyan Chand Essarani also took notice of the incident on Wednesday and termed it a “barbaric act”. He said he had summoned a report from the Shaheed Benazirabad DIG and Sanghar SSP, adding that the culprits would be soon arrested.

Meanwhile, Aurat March’s Karachi chapter said the incident added to a “long list of atrocities, discrimination and violence against women and minorities in Pakistan”.

“We call on the Sindh Government to immediately take action, form a high-level investigation committee, and ensure this case doesn’t end up in either another out-of-court settlement case or another case suffering prolonged delays,” the organisation demanded.