Young man arrested for ‘killing blackmailer’

Deceased was nominated in several criminal cases

LODHRAN:

Police have arrested a student on charges of murdering a youth who was blackmailing him.

The police said the investigations over the past 15 days had revealed that the deceased was nominated in seven cases of various crimes.

The suspect was arrested along with his cousin and the murder weapon was also seized, police officials said. They said the deceased had been shot dead with his own pistol.

The police officials said the student who was fed up with blackmailing had killed the man.

The heirs of the deceased had lodged the case against unidentified murderers at Dhanut police station.

The investigators said the slain man, Mohammed Sajjad alias Pahna, was allegedly blackmailing and sexually abusing the suspect, Rizwan.

The suspect told his cousin Nadeem about the blackmailing and abuse. He reportedly said that the blackmailer had called him again and he would avenge the assault.

He asked his cousin to wait for his phone call and pick him on his motorcycle after the crime.

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According to the investigators, Rizwan then went to meet Sajjad and killed him before fleeing.

The police arrested the suspect after gathering the evidence and obtained his physical remand.

During the interrogation of the suspect, it was revealed that Sajjad had a land dispute with his relatives but he had been killed due to immoral acts.

However, the case registered after the murder had reportedly mentioned a land dispute as the motive behind the murder. Sajjad was also accused of killing a man along with three unidentified gunmen of Mohammad Bilal and Mohammad Usman at the behest of his relatives Rana Kamran and Haider. The attack reportedly took place on a road.

Kahror Paka DSP Rao Tariq said several cases were registered against the slain Sajjad in Dhanut police station in 2018 and 2019 on charges of possessing illegal weapons and other crimes.

He had obtained interim bail in the cases.

Police officials said they had seized the murder weapon from the suspect and further investigation was under way.

On the other hand, local sources said the suspect had been appointed as the imam of a mosque in his area and the slain Sajjad was defaming and blackmailing him.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 6^th, 2021.