KARACHI, Dec 4: Additional district and sessions judge Tasneem Sultana on Tuesday rejected the pre-arrest bail application of Shaikh Abdul Majeed, the father of murder victim Hafiz Shaikh Mohammad Azeem, and remanded him to jail custody for 14 days.

Shaikh Abdul Majeed, through his counsel Javaid Mir, had submitted an application under Section 498 of the Criminal Procedure Code to the court.

The defence counsel argued that police had neither arrested the murderer nor produced a final charge-sheet in the case so far. He said the police were trying to falsely implicate his client in the case, as they have no solid proof of the involvement of Abdul Majeed in the double murder case.

The lawyer said his client had already submitted an application to the court for the transfer of the investigation of the couple’s murder from zone west since he was not satisfied with the progress.

Hafiz Shaikh Mohammad Azeem and his bride Beenish were found dead under mysterious circumstances the morning after their wedding night in their North Nazimabad apartment in the limits of the Taimuria police on Aug 11.

On Oct 27 investigation officer (IO) Khalid Khan of the New Karachi police station had submitted an interim charge-sheet to judicial magistrate-12 (Central) Abdul Zahoor Chandio, in which he nominated Shaikh Abdul Majeed as the main accused in the case.

Referring to Abdul Majeed’s interview on a TV channel, the IO said that Shaikh Abdul Majeed had himself admitted his presence up to 5am in the couple’s room and added that Beenish was also murdered within two to three minutes between 4am and 5am by breaking her jaws and covering her nose and mouth with a pillow.