A man shot his sister in a parking area next to the sessions court on Saturday for marrying a man who had divorced their elder sister. She later passed away at a hospital.
Humaira had married Amjad after he had divorced her sister Shazia. His father-in-law Muhammad Ashraf had filed a complaint against him at Sanda police station under Sections 496 and 376 of the Pakistan Penal Code (fraudulent marriage and rape). Amjad was arrested on March 14 and sent to Camp Jail on March 15.
On Saturday, Humaira and her counsel Advocate Rana Shehbaz were at the court to attend a hearing of Amjad’s plea for after-arrest bail. Humaira had stayed back in Shehbaz’s car parked in Baba Ground next to the court complex.
Several witnesses told The Express Tribune that they saw a man shooting at the car. They said a crowd of people rushed to get out of the parking lot. The assailant managed to flee before the policemen deployed for court security reached the scene. They said people were afraid to approach the car even after they saw the assailant flee. “We thought there was a bomb in the car that would go off if anyone approached it,” one of the bystanders said. “It took a while for people to finally approach the car and call Rescue-1122 to take the woman to the hospital.” Humaira told police, as she was being wheeled into an ambulance, that her brother Akhtar had attacked her. She later succumbed to her injuries at the hospital. Advocate Rana Shehbaz told The Express Tribune that Humaira had asked him to go to the court alone and leave her in the car. He said he was still at the court when he received a call from the Islampura SHO saying she had been attacked in his car.
Islampura police have registered a murder case against Ashraf (Humaira’s father), Akhtar and Ansar (a relative) on Humaira’s uncle Amjad Abdul Ghafoor’s complaint. Ghafoor said that these men had had her gunned down because she had married Amjad even though he had divorced her sister.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 30th, 2014.