Missing man's bones found in bakery oven

Baker confesses to killing labourer over monetary dispute

HARIPUR:

Police on Tuesday found the remains of a missing man from the kiln of a bakery.

A labourer was killed and his body was cremated by the suspect in the huge oven of his bakery near Dari Chowk in Khalabat Township. Police recovered the victim's bones from a kiln and booked bakery owner Malik Safeer.

According to local police 40-year-old Syed Jan Agha Kochi, a resident of Khalabat Township, worked at a junkyard.

The victim went missing on Sunday evening, subsequently, his family filed a missing report with the police and also made announcements on social media.

DSP Saddar Circle Sajjad Khan formed a team under Khalabat SHO Ali Farman to trace the missing man.

The police investigators adopted the time-tested method of picking up the leads from where he was seen last, Farman said. Tracking Kochi’s daily routine by questioning his family, neighbours, and shopkeepers close to his junkyard, town police got clues establishing suspicion that somehow the baker was involved.

A police squad went to the bakery and searched the premises. To their horror, they found human bones inside the kiln, SHO Farman said.

They took the bakery owner Safeer into custody and hauled him to the police station for questioning. Once inside the interrogation room, Safeer cracked down and opened up about his crime. The baker confessed to killing Kochi over a monetary dispute.

Safeer had first shot and killed the victim and then stuffed the body inside the huge oven in which he used to bake bread, buns and biscuits. Safeer kept feeding the town people breads baked inside an oven that had a corpse burning along with gas.

The suspect also informed the police about the murder weapon. A squad, after acquiring a search warrant, combed the premises and found a pistol and an empty shell. They also found the victim’s cellphone and other belongings.

SHO Farman said that samples of the remains of the body will be sent to Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Peshawar for DNA test. The forensic experts will also give a report on the murder weapon, he said. He further said that Safeer was presented before a judicial magistrate who approved his three-day physical remand.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 17^th, 2021.