• Vet hospital owner, associate arrested; hunt on for female suspect
• ‘There were visible marks of injuries on her face’

KARACHI: Police on Thursday said they were treating the mysterious death of a girl, Sara Malik, as murder and not drowning at Seaview as was being claimed, arguing that there were visible injury marks on her face believed to be caused before her death.

In their initial postmortem examination report, doctors had established that drowning was not the cause of her death, according to South-SSP (investigation) Zahida Perveen.

Speaking to a select group of media personnel in her office, the SSP recalled that the Madadgar-15 police helpline had received a call from a citizen, Mr Jamal, who reported that the girl had jumped into the sea, purportedly to commit suicide, on Friday afternoon.

The body was recovered on Sunday morning and her family members recognised her. The postmortem examination was performed at the Jinnah Postgra­duate Medical Complex on Sunday and the report revealed that the body was not two days old, the police officer pointed out. The initial autopsy report also showed that it was not a drowning case, she added.

SSP Perveen said the area police had recovered the girl’s handbag and other belongings, besides a card of a veterinary hospital from the spot. The hospital administration confirmed to the police that she had been working there.

“There were visible marks of injuries on her eyes, apparently caused before she died, and also on her nose,” she said. However, the officer hastened to add, the actual cause of death could be determined after final reports of medical examinations were received.

Police Surgeon Dr Sumaiyya Syed said: “At the time of postmortem, the body was ‘fresh’ and had minor injuries on the face. There was sea mud in her mouth”.

“Her clothes were wet from the front side and dry from the back side,” she added.

The doctor observed that the girl was found lying face down in the waves on the beach, and confirmed that she was not pregnant.

The south investigation wing head said that murder charges had now been included in the otherwise suicide FIR.

Two suspects arrested

SSP Zahida Perveen said that before the incident, the caller, Mr Jamal, had also spoken to her. She had constantly been weeping for about 15 minutes at the beach but she did not share the reason with him.

The officer said that two suspects, Shan Saleem (the owner of the vet hospital), and Ms Bisma (an employee), had been nominated in the case on the complaint of the deceased girl’s father.

Shan Saleem and another suspect, Waqas Ahmed, his partner, have been arrested. Efforts were under way to arrest Ms Bisma.

“Shan Saleem had hidden Sara Malik’s mobile phone,” the SSP said, and quoted him as telling the investigators that he intended to delete evidence from the phone set. The mobile phone had since been recovered for a forensic analysis, said the police officer.

Possible motive for the ‘murder’

Sharing details of the findings during the initial investigation, SSP Zahida Perveen said that Sara Malik was a physiotherapist but she loved pet animals and, therefore, she worked at the vet hospital. She had been associated with the hospital for about two years and had become very close to its owner, Shan Saleem, who assigned him the responsibility of administration. “He had hired Ms Bisma five/six months back and when Ms Malik came to know that she (Bisma) had intimate relationship with him, she got extremely disturbed” said the police officer.

“In an episode, Ms Malik threw her mobile phone in a fit of anger and left the hospital on January 6. Shan Saleem picked it up and hid it for obvious reasons. He claimed that Ms Malik had taken drugs at least once.

There was no evidence of the deceased having been subjected to a criminal assault, said the SSP.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2023