Picking up clues: Crime scene weaves a tangled web

Lady health worker shot and killed by companion, says police

RAWALPINDI:

“I could hardly breathe after seeing the blood pouring out of my mother’s abdomen on our door step after she was shot,” said Ali, the youngest son of 45-year-old Shabana Malik, who was shot at her home in Cantt View Colony on September 5. Ali insists that his mother was killed by a man pretending to be an income tax officer.

Shabana was responsible for a vaccination team in Moorat, Fateh Jang, and had previously survived a murder attempt after unidentified men riding a motorcycle shot at her in July this year.

She is survived by her five children and husband, Malik Muhammad, who runs an army canteen. The man responsible for her death, Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi, was “like a member of the family,” Ali said. Zahoor is friends with Nasir, a van driver who would take Shabana’s children to school before she would head off to work at the hospital.

“He asked my mother to help with his son’s admission to the Army Public School and even helped us when our house was being constructed,” Ali said. “We trusted him as we would a father.”

However, police officials say Zahoor conspired to kill Shabana as she had been in a relationship with him and was now blackmailing him.

“Initially, my father objected to Zahoor’s increased involvement with our family,” Ali said. “But then he took an oath in front of our family, saying he thought of my mother as his sister.” Shabana gave Zahoor several installments of cash for the purpose of buying a plot of land and also invested in his property, and ghee and cooking oil business. On the day of the murder, Zahoor came to Shabana’s house and told her that he would hand over documents for the purchase of a plot later that day.

Police said four culprits, including Zahoor, were arrested in a raid earlier this month. Investigation Officer Yasir Rabbani told The Express Tribune there was a property dispute between Shabana and her killer, but did not give further details.

He said Zahoor was involved in both attacks on Shabana; in July, he hired two men to attack her on Girja Road while she was en route to the Basic Health Unit in Moorat where she was in charge of a polio team. Rabbani said Zahoor then used Nasir Iqbal, another person, to find two men, Sarmad Javed and Raja Noushad, who would attack Shabana a second time. He said that the two culprits Zahoor and Nasir Iqbal are now in police custody on a three-day physical remand.

SHO Westridge police station Malik Tahir also confirmed the arrest of two culprits.

Rabbani alleged that Shabana’s family did not cooperate in the investigation and police uncovered Zahoor’s role in the murder through Shabana’s mobile phone records.  He said Zahoor and Shabana had been in a relationship for several years. “During investigation, Zahoor claimed that Shabana had been blackmailing him and demanding money for some time,” Rabbani said. “He wanted to get rid of her, because his wife was getting suspicious about their relationship.”

Ali says the family has not been able to meet the four arrested men in order to identify his mother’s killer, who was reportedly paid by Zahoor to shoot Shabana. “We are scared that Zahoor will influence or bribe the police as he is influential and has contacts with MNAs and MPAs,” said Ali.

A police official, on condition of anonymity, told The Express Tribune that a sitting MNA of the ruling party is trying to influence the police investigation in order to save the mastermind, Zahoor. This was the sole reason that the police officials were hesitant in showing the arrest of the culprits initially, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 12^th, 2014.