A young teacher was allegedly murdered by her fiancé, a serving police officer, in Qambar-Shahdadkot after she declined to marry him, a senior official said on Monday.

According to Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Qambar-Shahdadkot Sajid Sadozai, Sadaf Hasloo was targeted allegedly by policeman Fareed Hasloo.

“The deceased and the assailant belonged to the same tribe,” he told Dawn.com.

The SSP added that Sadaf had been engaged to the suspect for quite some time but had lately grown reluctant to marry him.

“She was a resident of Larkana district and used to teach in Qambar city’s village as a primary school teacher,” SSP Sadozai said, adding that the victim was travelling home in a van when she was targeted by the assailant, who fled after the attack.

“She received four bullet wounds on the upper part of her body and died instantly,” SSO Sadozai added.

Besides, he added, a pedestrian who happened to be a political party’s local leader, Mahboob Rahujo, also received bullet injuries due to indiscriminate firing by the assailant.

The SSP said that a first information report (FIR) was being lodged now as the family had completed the funeral proceedings, adding that the suspect had turned off his cell phone, but the police were carrying out investigations regarding his whereabouts to arrest him.

Incidents of violence against women are common across the country. In December 2023, the Asian Development Bank reported in a study that domestic violence was emerging as a silent pandemic in Pakistan, posing a serious challenge to society and the state.

A pregnant woman was killed by her husband last week over a domestic dispute, police said on Sunday.

In March, a woman seeking khula was allegedly killed by her husband outside the Malir court premises. In a separate incident, a woman was stabbed and killed, allegedly by her former husband, inside a local hotel in the Nursery area.

According to a ‘Mapping Gender-Based Violence (GBV) 2024’ report released by the Sustainable Social Development Organisation, conviction rates for gender-based violence in Pakistan were extremely low.

In Punjab, domestic violence cases stood at 1,167, with just three convictions, whereas KP totalled 446 cases of domestic violence, but no convictions were recorded.

Sindh registered 375 cases for domestic violence, but no justice was served in terms of convictions.

Balochistan had the highest conviction count among all provinces for the category, with 25 convictions out of 160 cases.