Ayaz Amir's daughter-in-law Sarah Inam laid to rest

ISLAMABAD: Funeral prayers of Sarah Inam, the slain daughter-in-law of senior journalist Ayaz Amir, were held on Wednesday after which she was laid to rest at a local graveyard.

For the last six days, the victim’s body was kept in the morgue of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Hospital. Her family claimed the body this morning for burial.

Sarah was murdered by her husband Shahnawaz Amir in Islamabad’s Chak Shahzad area on Friday, September 23, 2022. The suspect killed his wife using dumbbells on the pretext of self-defence. The couple got married three months ago.

A day earlier, a district and sessions court in Islamabad discharged Ayaz from the murder case of his daughter-in-law after finding no evidence against him.

On September 24, a trial court approved the arrest warrants of Ayaz and his former wife Sameena Shah, after the two were nominated as suspects by Sarah's family. The senior journalist was arrested while his former wife later acquired pre-arrest bail.

The petitioners maintained that Sameena was living at the farmhouse where Sarah was murdered.

The case

Following Sarah’s murder, the Islamabad Police registered a first information report (FIR) on the complaint of Station House Officer (SHO) Nawazish Ali Khan under Section 302 (punishment for murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

The FIR states that the suspect's mother, Samina, called the police on the day Sarah was murdered to inform them that her son had killed his wife with a dumbbell.

According to the FIR, Shah 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 confessed to hitting his wife repeatedly with a dumbbell during an argument and then later hiding the Canadian national's body in the bathtub, according to the FIR.

The "murder weapon", the FIR quoted Shahnawaz as saying, was hidden under his bed. After examining the dumbbell, the police reportedly found blood and hair on it, which were later sent for forensics.

The FIR added that the victim's body was sent to the Polyclinic Hospital for postmortem.