A woman was allegedly strangled by her in-laws for not handing over her jewellery to her mother-in-law on Thursday.
According to police officials, Mumtazabad resident Sumeera wed Shujaabad’s Esa Wali resident Sajid Hussain seven years ago. Two months ago Sajid’s mother convinced her son to marry for a second time. Sajid is now working in Dubai. When Sajid’s mother Mukhtiar Mai demanded that Sumeera hand over some of her dowry jewellery so that it could be given to her husband’s second wife she refused. “She wanted Sajid to have children and settle in Dubai so he would keep sending her money. My daughter was made to work as their personal slave here in Shujaabad,” said Sumeera’s mother Fazeelat Bibi. “They often beat my daughter and she tried to leave the house but we kept telling her to return because our neighbours would talk,” she told police officials.
A few days ago when Sumeera’s mother-in-law insisted that she hand over her jewels and some clothes from her dowry for her husband’s new bride she refused. “They beat her and she told me on the phone that she feared for her life. We told her to come home but the next day we heard that she had ‘committed suicide’,” said Sumeera’s brother Belal. “I don’t believe a word of it because she told us that they had threatened to kill her and the autopsy report confirms that she was strangled,” he said.
Sumeera’s in-laws told police that she had committed suicide because she felt guilty for having cheated on her husband. “They said that she had hung herself from a ceiling fan and we took the body and sent it for an autopsy,” said inspector Ayub Jafri. “The medical report said that she died from strangulation and that there were finger prints recovered from the body as well as marks of torture all over her body,” he said.
Sumeera’s family implicated Mukhtiar Mai, her daughter Fatima Bibi and her son Sajjad in their daughter’s death. “We called the police and filed a report but I know my daughter didn’t kill herself. Her husband didn’t even know she was dead and when we called him he told us that his parents were not involved. That it was a suicide,” Fazeelat Bibi said.
Sumeera’s mother and brother told media Sumeera was killed by her mother-in-law Mukhtiar Mai and sister-in-law Fatima Bibi and brother-in-law police constable Sajjad. A police team has arrested Sajjad and is questioning the remaining family. A case has been registered and police are investigating.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 22nd, 2012.
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