Chitrali man arrested on suspicion of murder

By Zulfiqar Ahmad

ISLAMABAD, Aug 17: Police have arrested a Chitrali man on the suspicion of killing a Pashtoon grocery store owner who went missing about a month ago from the Chitral town.

Syed Karim, a resident of Dir, was running a grocery store in the Chitral town and had purchased a piece of land in Juti Lasht which is reported to have become a bone of contention between him and the arrested man.

When contacted, Ejaz Ahmed, a muharrar at the Chitral police station, told ChitralToday that Jehangir Jigar, who also worked as a district correspondent for a TV channel, was nominated in the case by the relatives of the victim after the latter went missing. He said the accused was arrested and an FIR registered against him for his alleged involvement in the murder.

He said the victim had gone missing about one-and-a-half-month ago. On the complaint of his relatives, he said, the police traced the body of the missing man along the Chitral river near Afghanistan. It is suspected that Karim was murdered and his body thrown into the river.

“We managed to track down the suspect with the help of his mobile phone data,” he added. He said the police were yet to take the body of the victim into custody.

“The police are working on it and will collect the body soon,” he added.
According to the details of the case, the deceased had purchased a piece of land at Juti Lasht over which Jehangir Jigar had family ownership claim. The relatives of the deceased told the police that Karim was being threatened by Jehngir for buying the land.
The accused had challenged the land dispute case in the local court where his plea was rejected twice.

UPDATE: The body of the missing man was recovered from the river in Asmar, Afghanistan, and buried there. The Chitral police exhumed the body and took it back to Drosh for a postmortem. The report of the postmortem is awaited.