Kohat police on Tuesday said that they had arrested the main suspect in the murder case of NGO worker Hina Shahnawaz.

Shahnawaz was gunned down in Kohat's Astarzai area on Feb 6, allegedly by a relative who objected to her working outside the home, police had said.

The suspect, Shahnawaz's cousin, was at large when the case first emerged. Police had said they were actively working towards his arrest.

He was arrested today while the police was patrolling the city of Kohat, an official at Ustarzai police station said. Six of the seven suspects in the case have been taken into custody so far.

The NGO worker's relatives had attempted to cover up the incident, a family member told DawnNews, but a First Information Report was lodged after reports of the murder began circulating on social media.

District Police Officer Kohat Javed Iqbal had earlier said that Shahnawaz had been shot four times.

Soon after, on Feb 13, the suspect had claimed innocence in a video message posted on social media. He had said that he had not killed his cousin, and that the real culprit was somebody else.

He had also said in the video message that there were several other female members of his family that held jobs, adding that his own sister was a schoolteacher.

He had claimed that the victim’s family had tried to trap him in order to protect the real murderer.