Rawalpindi – Pirwadhai police have sought DNA test of Arab Gul, father of deceased Sidra Arab, 19, in the bid to have an additional evidence that the body exhumed on July 28 was that of Sidra, it has been learnt.
Source close to the investigation of the jirga prompted honour killing disclosed to The Nation that the investigators had taken Arab Gul to Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) to get his DNA tests done. The samples from the body of Sidra had already been sent to the agency for medical examination.
The police sources said that the matching of the DNA would provide additional medical evidence that the body disinterred in the presence of the area magistrate was that of Sidra, who was choked to death after her family held a jirga on July 17 to kill her for bring bad name to the family.
In the meanwhile, a team of the investigators visited Fauji Colony in Pirwadhai to collect further evidence on the basis of information obtained from the arrested accused including Asmat Ullah Khan, ex-vice chairman of the area union council and relative of Sidra, her father Arab Gul, her brother Zafar – who allegedly choked her to death with a pillow, her parental uncle Mani, her father-in-law Muhammad Saleh alias Saleem Khan, her husband Zia-ur-Rehman.
The investigators while visiting the locality on Wednesday collected the video evidence from the CCTV cameras installed in the house of Asmat Ullah. The police have also learnt about the names of the women who took part in the jirga and later helped in the process of Sidra’s burial.
It was on Tuesday that the police sent already arrested Arshad Mehmood, who dug the grave for Sidra, and Muhammd Saif ur Rehman, secretary for Chatti graveyard, after completing initial investigations to their extent. The investigators had obtained three day physical remand of Khayal Muhammad, who transported the dead body to the graveyard in his rickshaw. The police said they had yet to recover the rickshaw from the driver.
The incident of honour killing came to the fore after Pirwadhi police got a tip-off that a married woman had been killed for honour and silently buried in an undisclosed grave. Initially, Zia ur Rehman in his FIR on July 21 alleged that his wife Sidra eloped with Muhammad Usman on July 11 and got married to him despite being already married.
The police investigations, however, revealed that Sidra was brought back from Muzaffarabad on July 16 and subsequently killed the next day after the family jirga decision.