KARACHI, Nov 24: A 32-year-old woman, who had allegedly killed her husband and attempted to dispose of the body by boiling its parts, and her nephew were arrested on Thursday, police and witnesses said.

The Shah Faisal police said that the 40-year-old victim, Ahmed Abbas, son of Rustum, was the second husband of Zainab Bibi, who claimed to have killed the man because he had attempted to assault her 18-year-old daughter from her first husband.

ASP Afnan Amin of the Al-Falah area told Dawn that the stink of blood and flesh from the couple’s rented house in Green Town attracted the attention of area residents who reported the matter to the police at around 2.30pm.

He said the police immediately reached the spot and arrested the woman who had chopped the victim’s body into over three dozen pieces and was boiling some of the pieces in a bid to shrink them so that she could place them in a small gunny bag.

“During preliminary interrogation, she said she killed her husband as he was a drunkard and had attempted to sexually assault her 18-year-old daughter a couple of days ago,” he said.

The police officer said that her nephew, Zaheer, 22, was also found in the house when the police raided it.

“A case has been registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. Both suspects are in police custody,” he said.

Her first husband had died a couple of years ago, he said, adding that she, her nephew and her both husbands hailed from Rahim Yar Khan district of Punjab.

The officer said that efforts were also being made to confirm the identity of the victim whose head was intact.

“We have asked the medico-legal section of a hospital for the reconstruction of the body,” he said, adding that police were considering the option of a DNA test to confirm the victim’s identity.

ASP Amin said the police also seized a dagger, a kitchen knife and a piece of rope found at the crime-scene.

He said the woman disclosed that she gave the victim a cup of tea laced with heavy tranquillisers and she strangled him after he became unconscious in the early hours of Thursday.

“Then she chopped the body into many pieces so that she could dispose it of,” he added.

The officer quoted the woman as saying that she had moved her daughter from the house to her relatives after her husband attempted to assault her. “Efforts are being made to track down her daughter,” he said.