Man held for hacking friend to death
PHOTO: File
Police claimed to have arrested the suspected killer of Akhtar Mahmood, who had been murdered on December 31, 2021.
City Depalpur SHO Qalb Sajjad said accused Muhammad Zain had had relations with different women. Akhtar, who happened to be Zain’s friend, used to stop him from blackmailing women by making their pictures and videos.
Sometime before the murder, Zain allegedly made a nasty video of a woman so Akhtar informed her family about those pictures and video. It was decided at a panchayat in Depalpur that Zain would delete those pictures and he had also been humiliated during the proceedings of the panchayat and he was asked to apologize to the whole neighbourhood.
This was too much for Zain to take, and he decided to avenge his humiliation. He made a plan to punish Akhtar.
As per the plan, he took unsuspecting Akhter out one day and brutally killed him. Zain then threw bottles of wine around the body of the victim to create an impression as if Akhtar had been drunk. Police had arrested him with the help of the mobile data within 24 hours of the incident, but the forensic and post-mortem reports were delayed.
Police had found the body of Akhter on the New Year’s eve. His throat had been slit and chest stabbed while his genitals had been mutilated. The body had been found in an uninhabited housing scheme in the jurisdiction of the Depalpur City Police Station.
The police had activated human intelligence and soon managed to identify the body as that of Akhtar Mehmood, 35, a resident of Hamid Shah Colony.
Following directions of DPO Faisal Gulzar and SP Muaz Zafar, a special police team had been constituted to solve the blind murder case and apprehend the accused. The police team through deployment of modern technology and human intelligence arrested the accused who turned out to be none other than a companion of the deceased.
The accused had also traveled to Karachi with the deceased.
The province has witnessed a number of cases in which tortured bodies were found after horrific crime incidents.
On November 4, the body of a minor was found by the police in Lodhran.
Reportedly, the police claimed that the minor girl was abducted and raped before decapitation.
The accused allegedly abducted the victim and brutally murdered her after raping her. He then tied the victim's body to a tree in a cotton field and escaped. It was reported that the accused could not sleep for 15 days due to “fear” and remained restless.
The accused told the whole story to the girl's family. Police later recovered the body of the deceased from a local field on the identification of the accused.
In yet another case in October 2020, a man had allegedly murdered his sister-in-law over a strained affair in the provincial capital.
Police had found the victim’s body in a sewerage.
Police had traced the case of the blind murder of the said woman and arrested her sister’s husband along with his accomplice.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2022.