MULTAN City News

Qandeel’s mother wants to see her son, Mufti Qavi punished

Says victim wanted to arrange Wasim’s marriage

From Nadeem Shah

MULTAN: “Media hype caused the murder of my daughter. It incited my son to kill his elder sister. Not only the killer must be convicted but also Mufti Abdul Qavi and Qandeel’s ex-husband Ashiq Hussain should be brought to justice,” Qandeel Baloch’s mother Anwar Bibi demanded.

“Once Qandeel told me that she met Mufti Abdul Qavi. He placed his hand on her shoulder and said he liked her very much,” she said, adding that it was followed a minor scuffle. “Qandeel told me that she was afraid of Mufti Qavi because of the life threat from him,” Anwar Bibi said Wednesday.

She was talking exclusively to The News at her double-storey rented house in Gulistan Street on Sher Shah Road.

Qandeel Baloch was the only source of bread for her parents. She used to send Rs 35,000 to Rs 40,000 per month to them regularly via easypaisa to meet domestic expenditures because her five brothers had been living with their wives and not supporting the parents.

“My sons are slave to their wives. Only one unmarried son Wasim occasionally visited us. Qandeel gave Rs 30,000 to Wasim to start a business in Dera Ghazi Khan at small level but he killed his protector, after being instigated by scandalous media,” Anwar Bibi said.

Friends and relatives teased Wasim after her provocative pictures and messages were aired. Qandeel was afraid of her brother but she sent him messages on her arrival in Multan before her murder. She asked him to visit Multan and said she would arrange her marriage, but the brother strangled her.

Qandeel’s father and mother forbade her not to invite Wasim but she informed him about her arrival as she was compelled by her sisterhood, Anwar Bibi said.

During this interview, Qandeel’s mother was looking tense, restless, depressant and hopeless while lying on a cot, wearing traditional shalwar qameez.

Replying in low tone and with pauses, Anwar Bibi said she did not nominate Mufti Qavi in FIR but Qandeel was scared because of the life threats from him.

“Qandeel avoided sharing her pains and pleasures with us so that there was no disturbance in the family. She stopped sending money to Wasim couple of months ago and he was very depressed because his small-scale business of mobile phones required more investment.”

Wasim had visited the family to inquire after his father Muhammad Azim met an accident some months before and he visited for the last time when he strangled his sister.

Wasim did not show his feelings or anger and was looking normal and happy when Qandeel assured him of arranging his marriage. Qandeel asked her brother on phone, “Please come my son. I will make all the arrangements for your marriage despite being forbidden by the mother.”

Qandeel’s murder has destroyed the family financially. Anwar Bibi married Azim, when she was just 15 years old, while her husband was around 50. He contracted his second marriage for want of son because his first wife gave birth to four daughters.

Azim had been owned 6 to 7 acres of land. All of his daughters had been married before his second marriage. But they have died by now.

Anwar Bibi gave birth to six sons and three daughters, including Aslam Shaheen, Tariq Aziz, Akram, Ghulam Bibi, Shahnaz Bibi, Arif Hussein, Salim, Fauzia (Qandeel) and Wasim.

“We do not have money to meet domestic expenses and paying Rs 10,000 monthly rent for the house. The only option for us is to return to our ancestral village,” Anwar Bibi said.

She said death sentence for her son was not enough and Qavi and Qandeel’s ex-husband must be also convicted.

When asked about the presence of a bearded man in a double-cabin vehicle in the street on the night of Qandeel’s murder, she did not confirm that.

It has been reported by some media outlets that a bearded man had been seen in the street on the night Qandeel was murdered.