KARACHI: A girl and her fiancé were murdered in Karachi and Swat, respectively, for “meeting and taking selfies” in the city last month, it emerged on Monday.

The 19-year-old girl was allegedly poisoned to death by her father in the Pirabad area of Orangi Town while her fiancé, Salman, who is her maternal cousin also, was shot dead in Swat, police here said.

The girl’s father and grandfather have been arrested after a murder case was registered on directions of the court concerned on a complaint of the girl’s mother, said Pirabad SHO Ayaz Brohi.

The arrested father claimed that her daughter had committed suicide by taking a poisonous substance inside their home in Qasba Colony.

The SHO said the girl, Marina, died on Nov 7. The next day, the father and other relatives buried her body claiming that she had committed suicide. No post-mortem examination was conducted.

Father, grandfather of the girl remanded to prison for questioning

However, the girl’s mother, Abida, filed an application before the district and sessions judge West, who ordered the police to get the murder case registered on her complaint.

The Pirabad police in compliance with the court order registered the murder case on Nov 24 and arrested the girl’s father, Abdul Raheem, and grand-father, Abdul Hakeem, who have been remanded to prison. The case was handed over to the investigators for further investigation.

The mother told the police that several days before the incident her sister had come from their native place in Swat with her son, Salman, who was engaged to the girl. She stated that they both met and took pictures with a smartphone, which was objected to by the girl’s relatives.

SHO Ayaz Brohi said that as per the statement of the mother, her maternal nephew was shot dead in Swat over so-called honour and later on her daughter was murdered here.

The officer said that since the youth’s murder did not take place here, they were not in a position to say anything about those charges. He said that as per information gathered by the police, they were murdered by relatives over “meeting and taking pictures together prior to their marriage”.

He said the police were waiting to exhume the body of the girl buried in a local graveyard to ascertain the exact cause of death. The complainant has gone to her native place in Swat.

The police on Monday approac­hed the court concerned to seek its order for exhumation of the body in the presence of a magistrate and medical board, but the judge did not issue any order and told the investigators to bring the complainant before the court.

The police approached the complainant’s brother, who was in Peshawar. He said he would come to Karachi on Tuesday with his sister to appear before court.

The investigation officer of the case, Inspector Farooq Janjua, said three other suspects were also nominated in the case but they had fled.

The IO said that the girl was engaged to be married to her maternal cousin around 20 to 25 days before the incident.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2018