Blame game: Woman accused of killing sister over property

‘Bhikhi started seeing a man from a different tribe after husband’s death’.

FAISALABAD:

The sister of a woman found killed in Faisalabad on Friday has been arrested by Saddar police on suspicion of the murder.

Noor Bhikhi, 42, was arrested on Wednesday along with two of the five men who have also been accused by complainant, Rai Dost Muhammad, the women’s uncle.

Muhammad accused Bhikhi, also his daughter-in-law, of killing her sister, 40-year-old Ghulam Fatima, to take over her share of the agricultural land left behind by their father, Rai Hidayat Khan. He said Bhikhi had been married to his son, Rai Muhammad Afzal Khan, a school teacher. He said Afzal passed away three years ago. “She started seeing men after Afzal’s death,” he alleged.

He said Bhikhi was warned several times that this was an affront to the family name for a woman to develop a relationship with a man from a different tribe but she refused to listen to anyone. He said Fatima had also had several arguments with Bhikhi over the issue.

“The two sister had a fight on Friday morning too,” he said.

Muhammad said Fatima’s body was found in the house on Friday. He said she had been choked.

Saddar police said the body had been sent to the Allied Hospital for an autopsy. Besides Bhikhi, the FIR accused Jahangir, Nadeem Abbas, Farman, Umar Hayat and Abdullah.

Saddar police station house officer Ayub Sahi said Bhikhi, Umar Hayat and Abdullah would be produced before a judicial magistrate on Friday for judicial remand.

He said final cause of Fatima’s death could only be determined on receipt of the chemical examination report from the laboratory in Lahore.

The land left behind by Hidayat Khan was distributed this year among the two sisters as well as their uncle Muhammad, Khan’s only brother, after the death of his wife Hajjan Daulat Bibi. Muhammad said the property was distributed in accordance with the Sharia law.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 16^th, 2011.