- Accused Shahnawaz’s mother Sameena seeks pre-arrest bail.
- Sameena says she is not linked to Sara’s murder, has health issues.
- Says she wasn’t an eyewitness to Sara’s murder.
Senior journalist Ayaz Amir’s ex-wife and mother of Shahnawaz — who allegedly killed his wife Sara at home after a row over a “family issue” — has approached an Islamabad court for bail to avoid arrest in the murder case.
Shahnawaz — who was detained by the police from a farmhouse in Islamabad’s Chak Shahzad area for being a suspect in his wife’s murder — confessed to committing the crime and said that he “thought” his spouse was having an affair with someone else. The couple was married for just three months.
On Saturday, the trial court approved the arrest warrants of Amir and his former wife Sameena Shah, as the two were nominated as accused by Sara’s family. Amir has been arrested while his former wife has sought pre-arrest bail.
In the police report registered following the murder, an additional clause of Section 109 (punishment for abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code was added at the request of Sara’s uncles — Colonel (retd) Ikram and Zia-ur-Rahim — who have blamed Amir and his former wife for their niece’s murder.
The petitioners maintained that Sameena has been living at the farmhouse where Sara was murdered.
Sameena’s bail plea
Filing for bail, Sameena maintained that Shahnawaz messaged her on WhatsApp about a rukhsati [when a woman formally moves out of her home to live with her husband]. She further stated that her son called her at 9:12am to tell her about the murder.
“I rushed towards the room, but Sara had been murdered by then. I told Shahnawaz to stay in the room while Ayaz Amir informed the police,” Sameena stated in the plea.
She said that the Islamabad police reached the crime scene within minutes of being informed.
Sameena requested the court to accept her pre-arrest bail plea, claiming that neither is she linked to the murder in any way, nor is she an eyewitness of the crime. She also cited health issues while seeking the bail.
The case
Police registered a first information report (FIR) on the complaint of Station House Officer (SHO) Nawazish Ali Khan on Friday under Section 302 (punishment for murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
The FIR mentioned that the suspect’s mother, Sameena Shah, called the police on Friday (September 23) to inform them that her son, Shahnawaz, had killed his wife with a dumbbell.
According to the FIR, Sameena told the police that her son was in the house and had hidden the body of his wife. Following this, the police raided the house.
In the complaint, the police said that Shahnawaz had locked himself inside his room and when the personnel broke inside, there were blood spots on his hands and clothes.
Once the police got hold of Shahnawaz, he, according to the FIR, confessed to hitting his wife repeatedly with a dumbbell during an argument and then later hiding the Canadian national’s body in the bathtub.
The “murder weapon”, the FIR quoted Shahnawaz as saying, was hidden under his bed. Police, after examining the dumbbell, reportedly found blood and hair on it. They later sent it for forensics.
