KHAIRPUR: Parents of Ramsha Wassan — a teenage girl killed on Feb 1 allegedly by a suspect belonging to the Wassan community — had to hold a press conference here on Monday after a section of the media claimed that they had got the matter settled out of court.

Mr and Mrs Pervez Wassan told the newsmen that the report claiming that the matter was settled by a community jirga was totally baseless and unfounded. “In fact, no such jirga has been held anywhere as has been reported in the media on Sunday,” they said.

They noted that the prime suspect, Zulfu Wassan, was at present in police custody and facing the murder charge but other suspects, Izhar, Riaz and Imran, were still at large. “We have already recorded such statement in a court of law,” they added.

They complained that police had done nothing to arrest the absconding suspects.

They noted that Izhar was the son of a policeman, and alleged that police were reluctant to lay hands on their colleague while his father was using his influence within the department to save his son.

Pervez Wassan said that the news of the so-called jirga and a settlement was part of attempts to hush up the case.

He also complained that the Khairpur police were not including their statement, made under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, in the murder case which proved that some favour was being extended to the suspects.

He said that as a matter of fact, it was Izhar who wanted to wed Ramsha and when his proposal was turned down, he got her killed with the help of Zulfu and other associates. She was kidnapped and then killed, the victim’s father insisted.

The aggrieved parents repeated their demand for immediate arrest of the remaining nominated suspects along with Jinsar Wassan, “who is protecting the absconding suspects”.

According to media reports, Zulfu had been booked in scores of cases of heinous crime over the past 20 years but police never dared to lay hands on him, except for once when he was arrested and released on bail soon afterwards.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2019