Dadu honour-killing victim's mother added to probe while father claims death was accident

DADU: Police on Monday included the mother of a nine-year-old girl, who was allegedly stoned to death over the so-called honour in Wahi Pandhi on November 21, into their investigation, they said.

The deceased girl's father, who was arrested alongside four others, refuted the claims of honour-killing, saying his daughter was killed in an accident when a mountain rock fell on her.

Further, the local judicial magistrate, Agha Imran Pathan, has given a go-ahead to exhume the girl's body after the senior superintendent of police (SSP) for Dadu, Farrukh Raza, submitted request for the same a day prior.

According to a police spokesperson, the judicial magistrate gave 10 days to the director-general for the provincial health department to form a medical board for the investigation.

Also read: Honour-killing accused remanded into Dadu police custody

On the other hand, police have widened the scope of their investigation to include the mother, for whom they have obtained a two-day remand, the spokesperson said, adding that the three arrestees were being questioned.

A day earlier, three of the five men named in the first information report (FIR) were remanded into police custody after being presented to the district session judge. They included the late nine-year-old's father, Ali Bakhsh, Moulvi Mumtaz Laghari, and a facilitator of her funeral and burial.

Read more: Man suffocates sister, friend to death allegedly over honour

The police spokesperson, Abdul Razzaq Qambrani, had said Sunday raids were being carried out to search for and detain the remaining two. He had noted that the nine-year-old's family was a group of nomads who keep moving from one place to another since they trade between Sindh and Balochistan.

Locals on Sunday had also protested for the release of Moulvi Mumtaz Laghari so that the deceased girl's funeral prayers could be offered. They demonstrators demanded that Laghari's name be removed from the case.

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