In a shocking incident, a pregnant woman in Pakistan was allegedly murdered by her mother-in-law and three accomplices. According to police, his body was dismembered into dozens of pieces and thrown into a sewer in Punjab province.
The crime took place last week in Daska, Sialkot district, about 100 km from Lahore.
A murder case has been filed against the suspects and four people have been arrested in connection with the crime. Those arrested include mother-in-law, Sughran Bibi; his daughter, Yasmine; his grandson, Hamza; and a distant relative, Navid.
Senior police officer Omar Farooq informed reporters that the suspects confessed to killing Zara and dismembering her body.
Zara Qadir, a woman in her 20s, went missing last week and later police discovered her dismembered body in three bags, which was identified as hers.
Zara, the daughter of a police officer, married Qadir Ahmad four years ago and they had a three-year-old son. She left for Saudi Arabia after her marriage and returned to Pakistan only a few months ago.
Farooq said: “In her confession, Sughran Bibi said that she suspected Zara of practicing ‘witchcraft’ and furthermore, her son Qadir had started sending money directly to Zara’s bank account rather than ‘to his mother.
He said the four suspects smothered a pregnant Zara with a pillow while she was sleeping and then burned her face. Then they dismembered his body into dozens of pieces before throwing it down the drain in three bags.
“Based on Zara’s father’s statement that he suspected Sughran after she claimed that Zara had eloped with her lover after she went missing, we questioned Sughran, who confessed to his crime,” said Farooq.
He mentioned that Sughran was also Zara’s paternal aunt.
Farooq said that it was a case of extreme jealousy as the mother-in-law and her daughter not only killed Zara but also dismembered her body out of hatred. He added that Sughran and Yasmin believed that Zara’s beauty made Qadir favor her and ignore them in the process.