RAWALPINDI: A murder suspect was detained by the police for allegedly assaulting his stepsister before torturing and strangling her in Rawat, police said on Sunday.

At first the police were told that there had been a suicide case in Bagashikhan area after which senior officials reached the spot and collected evidence. The suicide information was provided by the victim’s stepbrother, Mohammad Azhar. However, after investigation on the basis of circumstantial evidence, it turned out to be a murder case, following which Azhar was taken into custody, police said.

The suspect confessed to having committed the crime, and revealed that he first tortured his stepsister in the absence of his mother, raped her and then killed her by strangling her in her house.

In a few hours, the mystery of rape and murder was solved and a postmortem was conducted.

A murder case was registered against the stepbrother on the complaint of the victim’s mother.

Mukhtar Bibi lodged an FIR with the police on Friday, stating that she had three sons and a daughter. Two of her sons lived in Multan while Azhar and her daughter Nimra lived with her in Rawat.

She said that she left for a private hospital at 7am on Friday leaving her daughter and son at home. She said one of her neighbours called her and asked her to immediately return home as there had been an emergency.

She said when she returned, she found her daughter Nimra lying dead on a bed in the courtyard while her son Azhar informed her that he had gone to his workplace and when he returned he found the door locked from inside.

He told his mother that after he forced his entry inside the house he found Nimra hanging by a rope tied to the ceiling of her room.

She suspected that Nimra was murdered by her stepbrother for unknown reasons. After the police launched an investigation, the murder suspect was detained who confessed to the crime.

Meanwhile, a man was found dead in an underground water tank of a house in Madina Town in the limit of Shahzad Town on Sunday.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2023