Shahnawaz Amir, his mother indicted

ISLAMABAD:

A district and sessions court in Islamabad on Monday indicted Shahnawaz Amir — the prime suspect in the Sara Inam murder case — and his mother Samina Shah, who is co-accused in the murder case.

Shahnawaz was arrested on September 23 for killing his Canadian national wife at a farmhouse in Islamabad’s Shahzad Town, where he lived along with his mother.

District and Session Judge Atta Rabani heard the murder case. At the outset of the hearing, the court framed charges against the accused. However, both the accused denied the charges against them.

The court called the prosecution's witnesses on December 14 after indicting the main suspect and his mother, the wife of senior journalist Ayaz Amir.

According to the police challan, during the investigation, the prime suspect confessed to killing his wife.

According to the challan, the main accused had told the police during the investigation that when Sara Inam did not send him money (sometime before her murder) she had a heated telephonic conversation with him and he had divorced her on the phone.

The suspect told the police that after the divorce, Sara Inam had reached Islamabad from Abu Dhabi on September 22. He told the police that she had started arguing with him in the bedroom that night and demanded to return the money she had sent to him.

On which, according to the police challan, the suspect first hit Sara Inam with a showpiece and injured her. When Sara Inam started making noise, the accused picked up a dumbbell and hit her several times on the head.

The challan also stated that, on the crime scene, Samina Shah, the mother of the main accused, told the police that her son had a fight with his wife Sara Inam and he killed her by hitting her on the head with a dumbbell.

After the arrest, the main accused had confessed that he killed his wife during a fight.

According to the challan, the main accused told the police that, he hid his wife's body in a bathroom tub before it was recovered by the police on his identification.

Samina Shah’s request dismissed

During the hearing on Monday, Judge Atta Rabbani dismissed the plea of co-accused Samina Shah seeking to be ‘discharged’ from the murder case and subsequent indictment. Samina Shah appeared before the court along with her lawyer Nisar Asghar.

At the outset of the hearing, the lawyer told the court that according to the police, the presence of Samina Shah was found but they failed to find any involvement of her.

The lawyer further requested that the mother of the main accused be discharged from the case as the prosecution's case was not against her.

The plaintiff in the case, Inam-ur-Rahim, was represented by his lawyer Rao Abdul-Rahim before the court. Advocate Rahim told the court that it is believed that the three had dinner together that night and said that it is in the police record that Sara visited her husband after the divorce.

“What happened when these three people sat there in the evening,” he asked. He further told the court that the divorce took place two days before the incident and that the CCTV cameras in the farmhouse, where Sara was murdered, were switched off.

The lawyer said that according to the suspect, the murder took place at 9 am, however, the post-mortem report states otherwise.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2022.