RAWALPINDI (Kashmir (English): Shocking revelations have surfaced in the case of one Sidra, who was allegedly killed and quietly buried on the orders of a Jirga in the name of honour in the Pirwadhai police station area of Rawalpindi few days back.
Sidra was brought back from Muzaffarabad as a jirga intervened after she allegedly eloped with a man, and it was through a Jirga that the order for her murder was issued, and her body was quietly buried.
According to details, Zia-ur-Rehman’s wife, Sidra, went missing from home on July 11 due to marital discord.
When Sidra disappeared from home, her husband and parents found out about her alleged relationship with a boy named Usman. All of them approached Usman’s house in the same area, but he was not there, nor was Sidra found.
On the night of July 16, Asmatullah, Sidra’s father, brother, and others brought Sidra back to Rawalpindi after a Jirga in Muzaffarabad.
On July 17, at Sidra’s husband’s house, Asmatullah, the girl’s father Arab Gul, husband Zia-ur-Rehman, and his father Saleh Muhammad, etc., held a Jirga in Sidra’s presence.
Honour killing case
At four in the morning, the Jirga, led by Asmatullah, decided that Sidra had lost the right to live after leaving home and should be killed. Upon this, Sidra’s father, brother, and paternal uncle took Sidra into a room and strangled her to death.
It is to mention here that Asmatullah, a trader leader from Bara Market, Sidra’s father Arab Gul, and her husband Zia-ur-Rehman all relate to each other.
After the murder, house women performed ghusl (ritual bath) inside the home and offered funeral prayers. The funeral prayers were led by Asmatullah.
In the meantime, the aforementioned individuals contacted a committee member of the Pirwadhai graveyard, also known as Chatti graveyard, who was their relative.
The killers asked for a grave within half an hour, to which the member and gravedigger replied that it would take at least three hours. The individuals then said that they would prepare the grave themselves and asked for the location.
Upon being shown the location, the grave was not fully prepared when Sidra’s body was brought by rickshaw and buried, and the traces were erased.
During this time, the police also received information about suspicious activity, so they began investigation.
On July 20, Asmatullah, his brother, and Sidra’s husband tried to complicate the matter by submitting an application to the CPO Rawalpindi regarding Sidra’s abduction and marriage to Usman.
The killers also filed a 22A application in court, stating that the police were not registering a case.
The Rawalpindi police, who were already busy with investigations, became more alert after the application was filed with the CPO and the court.
The police began checking fresh graves in the city graveyards and checked fresh graves and questioned gravediggers in Pirwadhai graveyard, Dhok Hamidan Pathan graveyard, the graveyard near Kacha Stop, and the H-11 graveyards.
During this time, the police received information about a rickshaw driver through human intelligence. When he was apprehended and questioned, he revealed that he had transported the body to the graveyard.
When the police checked the record of Pirwadhai graveyard, they found a complete torn slip from the receipt book of bodies and funerals, while when the graveyard register was checked, the aforementioned individuals had also tried to write and then cut out Sidra’s name and father’s name.
The police achieved their biggest success from the CCTV cameras installed in the graveyard committee office, which clearly showed Sidra’s body wrapped in polythene and all the individuals present.
When the police arrested the gravedigger Irshad and a member of the graveyard committee on the spot, the police reached the conclusion.
The police took into custody individuals from Sidra’s in-laws’ and parents’ homes and filed a request in court for exhumation and post-mortem. The court issued a notice for July 26 and also summoned the girl’s relatives.
A senior police officer stated that upon receiving court permission for exhumation, the body would be exhumed and a post-mortem conducted.
According to sources, the police have kept 10 individuals, including women, under investigation and surveillance.
Meanwhile, Chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) Umme Laila Azhar took notice of the incident of the woman murdered in Rawalpindi.
The Chairperson stated that the brutal murder of a woman in the name of honour is extremely painful.
