Police in the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) said on Wednesday they had arrested a 22-year-old man who “forcefully sexually assaulted and then strangled” his 20-year-old fiancée in a neighbourhood of the city earlier this month.

The arrest was made on the basis of the provisional report of the victim's post-mortem, which was conducted by a doctor at Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahayan (SKZN) Hospital Muzaffarabad a day after the murder, said Inspector Rashid Habib Masoodi, station house officer (SHO) of City Police.

Quoting preliminary investigations, he told Dawn that the victim and the suspect had strained relations with each other for some time as the former would accuse the latter of maintaining relations with other women through phone calls and social media even though she had convinced her family to agree to the marriage.

Engaged about three years ago, the couple was scheduled to solemnise their marriage in October, he said.

On August 8, the girl left her home in Upper Jalalabad neighbourhood with her sibling at about 1:15pm and, after dropping them off at a friend's house, reached the rented residence of the suspect in Babu Muhallah at about 2pm.

No other family member of the suspect was home that day as all of them had gone to their native village in the suburbs of Muzaffarabad, according to the SHO.

It was around 6pm that the suspect called two of his friends, who were brothers, to visit him for help, telling them his fiancée was not feeling well and needed to be taken to hospital.

According to SHO Masoodi, as the victim was brought dead to the SKZN Hospital, the doctors on duty were alerted and called the city police following which he immediately reached there with his team to take cognisance of the matter.

“When we reached there, the boy feigned loss of consciousness for about three hours,” he said.

In the meanwhile, the girl’s father lodged an application with the police, seeking an inquiry into the sudden death of his daughter, following which police started pre-FIR investigations under Section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), the SHO said.

On Tuesday afternoon, he added, police received the provisional post-mortem report of the victim, which revealed that the cause of death was a combination of smothering and strangulation.

“The mode of death was asphyxia and manner of death was homicidal,” wrote the doctor.

Recording other observations, the doctor said these suggested “possibility of forceful sexual assault", he added.

SHO Masoodi said the suspect, who was formally apprehended on Tuesday night, said during preliminary questioning that when his fiancée accused him of leaning towards other girls, he in turn told her that she too used to "talk to her cousins".

“To this she replied that her cousins were aged between 10 and 12 years and were like her younger brothers. We had a heated debate and fight,” the SHO quoted him as saying.

According to Masoodi, the suspect confessed that he strangled his fiancée “first with hands, then with a pillow and finally with her dupatta after an altercation and exchange of blows.”

“He also admitted to having raped her in spite of strong resistance by her,” he added.

Masoodi said the suspect would be produced before a judicial magistrate on Thursday to obtain his physical remand.