Dial M for murder: Police find woman’s head and shoulders

The body was cut into eight parts and was found over three days.

KARACHI: On Wednesday, someone informed the authorities that a woman’s head and shoulders wrapped in a blue plastic bag were found near Mazaar-e-Quaid.

The police claim that this Jane Doe’s parts were found around the city in eight pieces over three days, similar to a case they dealt with last month. In March, Nasreen’s finely cut up body was found in four different places near the Aga Khan Jamaatkhana in Garden.

While talking about the new Jane Doe case, the police said that her abdomen and legs were found in a garbage dump on Jahangir Road on Monday. The following day, her torso and arms were found near Capri Cinema.

Civil hospital’s medico-legal officers confirmed that the unidentified woman’s body was cut like Nasreen’s. They believe that the woman was fair and in her mid-30s.

According to MLO Karar Abbasi, a piece of black cloth was found in the blue plastic bag with the body.

“The woman was strangled. There are telltale signs on her neck,” he said. “She was cut into eight pieces - her arms were bruised which means that she was probably beaten before she was killed.”

A joint team of policemen and women from Jamshed Quarters and Solider Bazaar police station will be on the look-out for a suspect who they believe drives a while Corolla. Two policewomen will also be sent undercover to Mazaar-e-Quaid to look for the suspect. The police claim that they knew the colour of the suspect’s car from a rickshaw driver who saw a body bag being thrown out of a white car near Capri Cinema.

Murder in numbers

Nasreen’s case is still being investigated as the police traced her cell phone records. The Soldier Bazaar SHO, Khushnood Javed, said that Nasreen’s phone was used by the suspect(s) till March 26, 16 days after she was killed. And then they put her SIM card in another phone. “One of the locations from which the phone was being used was Patel Para,” he said.

According to the police, some of the last phone conversations Nasreen had was with an elderly man from Rawalpindi who had called her to the mazaar to give her some money. After tracing the calls, the DSP said that three men from Rawalpindi, Attock and Taxila were being questioned.

Jamshed Quarters DSP Qaiser A Shah suspects that the same man or gang could be involved in both cases. “We think it is a serial killer or an extremist who believes that by killing women who he suspects have bad morals, he can purify society,” he said. “Several years ago, something similar happened when men were accused of throwing acid on women who wore shalwars or trousers above their ankles along Tariq Road.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2012.