Behind bars: Police nab Ahmadi professor’s ‘murderer’
Suspect confesses he killed Tahira Malik for money.
Suspect confesses he killed Tahira Malik for money. PHOTO: EXPRESS
LAHORE:
Police said on Wednesday that they had arrested the murderer of an Ahmadi professor, who was found stabbed to death at her home in Lahore a day earlier.
Sajjad Ali, who the police said had confessed to killing Tahira Malik for “money”, is a Punjab University (PU) employee and lives in the varsity’s residential colony, the same area where the professor was murdered.
The professor was working at the PU on a contractual basis after retiring from its molecular genetics department.
She was teaching cell biology, DNA replication and repair, biochemistry and plant biotechnology at the postgraduate level.
The suspect was arrested within the university’s premises and an FIR has been lodged against him at the Muslim Town Police Station, sources told The Express Tribune.
The suspect, who works as an electrician at the university, frequently visited the professor’s house.
Ali told the police that he had killed the retired professor for money. However, the police found around Rs50,000 cash in the professor’s purse and no valuables, except an iPhone, were stolen from her house.
Police sources said there was no evidence of a robbery or a break-in as all doors were locked and it seemed like the professor was killed by a person who she knew.
“Only an iPhone was missing from the house. Everything else including Rs50,000 in her purse remained untouched,” said Muslim Town SHO Muhammad Ali. “We are investigating as to whether or not her faith was the motive behind the murder,” he added.
The professor was living alone in the house granted to her by the university as her husband had died a few years ago. Her only daughter lives in Karachi.
This is the third incident of Ahmadis being targeted in the last three weeks. On March 30, a prominent Ahmadi leader, and cousin of noble laureate Dr Abdus Salam, was shot dead in Nankana Sahib, while a veterinary doctor was killed in Lahore on April 7. The banned Jamaatul Ahrar claimed responsibility for those murders.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 19th, 2017.
Police said on Wednesday that they had arrested the murderer of an Ahmadi professor, who was found stabbed to death at her home in Lahore a day earlier.
Sajjad Ali, who the police said had confessed to killing Tahira Malik for “money”, is a Punjab University (PU) employee and lives in the varsity’s residential colony, the same area where the professor was murdered.
The professor was working at the PU on a contractual basis after retiring from its molecular genetics department.
She was teaching cell biology, DNA replication and repair, biochemistry and plant biotechnology at the postgraduate level.
The suspect was arrested within the university’s premises and an FIR has been lodged against him at the Muslim Town Police Station, sources told The Express Tribune.
The suspect, who works as an electrician at the university, frequently visited the professor’s house.
Ali told the police that he had killed the retired professor for money. However, the police found around Rs50,000 cash in the professor’s purse and no valuables, except an iPhone, were stolen from her house.
Police sources said there was no evidence of a robbery or a break-in as all doors were locked and it seemed like the professor was killed by a person who she knew.
“Only an iPhone was missing from the house. Everything else including Rs50,000 in her purse remained untouched,” said Muslim Town SHO Muhammad Ali. “We are investigating as to whether or not her faith was the motive behind the murder,” he added.
The professor was living alone in the house granted to her by the university as her husband had died a few years ago. Her only daughter lives in Karachi.
This is the third incident of Ahmadis being targeted in the last three weeks. On March 30, a prominent Ahmadi leader, and cousin of noble laureate Dr Abdus Salam, was shot dead in Nankana Sahib, while a veterinary doctor was killed in Lahore on April 7. The banned Jamaatul Ahrar claimed responsibility for those murders.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 19th, 2017.