LAHORE - Police yesterday arrested a man who strangled his second wife to death and left a snake at her charpoy to mislead investigators. The suspect is said to be an electrician by profession.
Resident of Deena Naath, Muhammad Abid, had contracted love-marriage with the 20-year-old resident of Shahdara some eight months ago. Police identified the victim as Noreen Bibi.
Local police official Muzammal told The Nation that investigators seized the snake from the scene and removed the body to the morgue for an autopsy. “He had contracted love marriage eight months ago but the lady was not happy with him. So, he killed his second wife,” the official explained.
The police also arrested two relatives of the suspect in connection with the cold blooded murder. According to police, the main suspect confessed to the investigators that he strangled his wife when she fell unconscious.
“Abid served some poisonous food to his wife in the morning. When she fell unconscious, the man strangled her to death,” a police investigator said. The suspect later threw a snake around her body to tell police and her relatives that she died because of snake-biting.
According to relatives of the victim, they contacted the police after witnessing torture marks on the neck and other body parts of the victim. First, the victim’s family took the body to their home. They were performing her last rites when they realized what actually had happened, a police officer said.
The police investigators recorded the statements of the victim’s family members and then detained her husband and his two relatives. A murder case under section 302 of the PPC was registered with the Chuhng police against Abid on the complaint of a brother of the victim.
The homicide unit, a special police cell to exclusively investigate murder cases, made the breakthrough after collecting evidences from crime scene and recording the statements of relatives of the victim.
Police investigators said two relatives of Abid were also booked in the murder case on the charges of abetment. One of them told the police that they had bought the snake after paying Rs1500 to a man of the same locality. The police last night handed over the body to her family after the autopsy. Further investigations were underway.
Women are victims of extreme violence in this rigid society where hundreds of females are killed by their relatives in the name of so-called honour.