Islamabad - The case of injuring of a student nurse, Zobia aged 22, at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in gunfire on January 23 has taken a new turn as the electronic evidence in possession of the investigators is contradicting what the victim said in her statement to the local police here on Wednesday.
On the very day of incident, there were reports that some unknown attacker shot injured the nurse when she was on her way from the nursing hostel to the medical ward in the premises of PIMS.
Zobia hailing from Rasool Pur area of Rajanpur in her statement to the police said that some unknown attacker held her hand before shooting her in the chest as she was on her way to the medical ward.
However, to most of the queries put by the police, she feigned as not in a position to exactly recall what happened to her on that day, the sources in the police said.
According to the sources, the case is not as simple as it looked on the day the incident took place. “The mobile phone of the victim — which is in possession of the investigators — speaks a different story. She had sent a text message to her ‘friend’ Meerub just before the incident took place on January 23 night and wrote to her that she is going to kill herself,” said a source privy to the investigation. She was hit once and the police recovered another bullet from her pocket, said the sources. The police had also recovered the revolver from the crime scene soon after the incident.
They said that the text message is intact in the sent items of Zobia’s phone. Her friend also confirmed to the police of having received the message as she also recorded her statement before the investigators the same day. Meerub also told the investigators that Zobia had also called her moments before the incident so that she could also hear the gunfire as, according to her, Zobia was hell-bent to end her life.
Meerub, a Christian by religion and daughter of Yasmeen, the head nurse of the surgery section of the hospital, was Zobia’s class fellow until the latter failed in her third year exams; however, they continued to be good friends. In her preliminary statement to the PIMS management, Zobia had told that Meerub knew each and every thing when the former was pressed to share the circumstances which led to her injury, a hospital staff told this scribe on condition of anonymity.
However, she added that Zobia later backtracked from her statement and recalled it as having called Zobia for help as she was in pain at that time, the staff added.
Sources at the hospital said the student had been on leave for the last 15 days. She did not record her exit in the gate register as she left the hostel on the day of incident.
According to the police sources, Zobia was missing from the hostel on the night of January 11. They said according to the Zobia’s mobile data collected by the investigators, she travelled up to Gujjar Khan that night.
According to the doctor who examined Zobia after her injury, she was shot by a revolver in the central upper part of her chest. She was hit once, she added. The nurse is still under treatment at the hospital’s medical ward and her condition is stable.
When contacted, local police informed this scribe that so far they had not registered a case in that regard. It seems that she (Zobia) herself would be booked for attempting suicide, they added. This scribe repeatedly attempted to contact the victim or any of her family members at the PIMS but could not succeed.