ISLAMABAD, Oct 16: After groping in the dark for 14 months, the Sihala police have solved the mystery shrouding the murder of a young man, Mohammad Haleem, and arrested a man.

Police sources said a lead helped their investigators reach the 45-year-old man, identified by his initials SW, who confessed to be a party to the crime. The sources would not disclose the out-of-the-blue lead, however.

They said SW, a resident of Soan Camp, told the investigators that he had illicit relations with the wife of his friend MA.

Ironically, MA, 62, discussed his suspicions about his 35-year-old wife NB with SW.

SW snared MA's 22-year-old nephew Haleem into a dark drama of attempted rape, staged in collaboration with NB at MA's house in Soan Camp, and together killed him.

Haleem's tortured body was spotted by a passerby in a graveyard in Soan Camp area on August 26, 2011. Autopsy on the body found that he had been strangulated to death some 10 days earlier.

Since the body remained unclaimed and the police did not find any clue to the murderer, it was buried.

The investigating officer, SI Munir Ahmed, told Dawn that the mystery unravelled after the lucky lead landed with the police on October 7 and led him to SW.

Haleem was not a regular visitor to the house of his uncle in Soan Camp. Two days after his body was found, MA and his wife left for Peshawar.

Peshawar police have arrested the couple following SW's statement to the Sihala police and are to be brought to Islamabad.

Meanwhile, the poor father of Haleem has recognised his son from the photographs of his body with the police.