‘Raped, murdered’ woman secretly buried at shrine to be exhumed

A city court on Wednesday ordered the exhumation of the body of a 55-year-old woman who was allegedly raped and murdered before she was secretly buried inside a shrine by its caretaker.

The exhumation will take place on July 3 in the presence of a judicial magistrate, following which a four-member team of forensic experts and doctors will examine the body to ascertain the facts, said the attorney for the victim’s family, Syed Faisal Ali.

According to the interim charge sheet, the family of the victim, Rehana, had filed a complaint with the police on May 1 that the woman had left the house in the afternoon but not returned, and her mobile phone was also unreachable.

Police collected the call detail record of the victim and found that her last contact was established with the suspect, Rizwan Hussain, who is the Mutawalli (caretaker) of the Hakim Syed Ahmed Shah shrine in Saudabad.

The suspect claimed during the interrogation that the victim had come to see him on the day of the incident, but she was not feeling well and had told him that her blood pressure and sugar levels were high.

The report quoted Hussain as saying that the woman fell unconscious on her face, following which he tried to revive her by spraying water on her face, but she did not respond and had stopped breathing. The suspect added that he was afraid to inform anyone about the incident, so he buried her inside a room at the shrine and then cemented the floor so that no one would notice. He later pointed out the location to the police.

The family claimed that the woman was raped and murdered by the suspect. Their lawyer said his clients had moved an application in the court seeking a fair investigation of the case, following which the East-VIII additional district & sessions judge ordered the woman’s exhumation.

The FIR of the case had been registered under sections 302 (premeditated murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender), 202 (intentional omission to give information of offence by person bound to inform) and 496-A (enticing or taking away or detaining with criminal intent a woman) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Khokhrapar police station on the complaint of the victim’s husband.