Fear of arrest led to fatal gunshot, says man who killed woman he wished to marry

LAHORE: The fear of being caught and arrested led to the fatal gunshot, said the man arrested for killing the woman he wished to marry days before her wedding to another person here in the city's Gulberg neighbourhood.

In his confession statement late Monday, the man said he became quite angry when the 25-year-old woman, who was his sister-in-law, refused to elope with him last Thursday and abandoned the scheduled marriage. He admitted to shooting and wounding her first, then shot her again — fatally this time — thinking that if she survived, she would have him arrested.

Lahore police traced the accused, identified as Ahsan, through the deceased woman's call detail record (CDR) a couple of days after her murder in a park in Gulberg on November 21. They detained him last Saturday when he went to his victim's residence during the Quran khawani — recitation of the Holy Quran as part of the Muslim funeral tradition.

According to police, the accused also explained his relationship with the late woman.

The two had exchanged some 12,500 messages and had met five times in the past three months as their location was found to be the same at these five moments in time, they added, citing CDR data. The accused also made revenge porn videos of the woman, which police claimed he later deleted.

Police added that the matter had escalated on November 21 in the park where Ahsan had called the woman to convince her to elope with him. The collar of her shirt had been torn, they added, noting that the two also met four days before her murder.

The accused's phone was sent for forensic testing, police mentioned.

Woman's father part of investigation

Back on Sunday, police had presented the accused in front of a local judicial magistrate who revealed that he was the woman's brother-in-law whom she had refused to elope with. She was to be married the same day.

The magistrate handed Ahsan over to the police on a four-day physical remand, police had said, adding that he had called the victim on her phone, telling her to come to the park in Gulberg where she was eventually found dead.

Police had arrested the man from Eminabad town in the Gujranwala district on Saturday and recovered the murder weapon from him as well. They claimed that he had confessed to killing his sister-in-law, saying he wished to marry her but upon her refusal to accompany him, shot her dead.

According to Lahore police, Ahsan liked his sister-in-law and, when the date of her marriage was finalised, had panicked and asked her to come to the park. Reportedly, when she had refused to accompany him and abandon the scheduled marriage, he had shot her and fled.

A first information report (FIR) over the murder was registered on behalf of Riaz Hussain, the deceased's father.

Sources in the Lahore police had said earlier they asked Hussain, the 24-year-old girl's father, to be part of the investigation. The last call that the late woman received was from the arrested man's number, they added.