Couple accused of killing youth jailed again

BOONI: A local court cancelled the post-arrest bail of a couple and ordered the police to re-arrest them for their alleged involvement in the murder of a young man in the Brep village in April last year.
The additional sessions court then gave the couple in the police custody on a three-day remand.  The court verdict came after the police submitted a forensic report prepared on samples collected from the grave of the victim after exhumation of the body on Dec 16, 2017. The report, which the police had received in March this year, revealed traces of tranquilizer/poison on the body, indicating he was killed after being made unconscious, a source in the police had told ChitralToday at that time.
Aslam Baig, 24, son of Purdoom Baig, was found dead in his house on the night of April 14, 2017. After his death, his wife told his elderly grandfather that he had suffered a heart attack. The father of the victim was in Islamabad at the time of the incident. The deceased was buried without informing the police about his mysterious death even though his relatives had seen marks of wounds on the body.
According to the local people, police constable Syed Shahab, son of Syed Islam Shah of Zupu village, used to visit the house of Aslam Baig. The wife of the deceased also belonged to the Zupu village.
The relatives of the deceased approached the police to register a case against Shahab, who worked in the police department as a constable, and the widow of Aslam Baig after the two contracted court marriage on Oct 10, 2017.  The police registered a murder case against the two suspects. The woman was arrested on Oct 22 from Ragh village where she along with the first wife of the man was living in a rented house. The constable was later also arrested. The constable later confessed to killing the youth in connivance with his wife to marry her, sources in the village told ChitralToday. He had also told the investigators that he killed Aslam Baig after giving him tranquilizer through his wife.
However, the couple was granted bail a few weeks and released. The relatives of the deceased man had held protest demonstrations against the police on the charge of weakening the investigation and helping the accused to get bail after arrest.
But a police inquiry later exonerated the Mastuj police, led by the then SHO Inspector Muhammad Shafi Shifa, of all the allegations and declared the murder investigation up to the mark. The report said the accused had been granted bail by a court in Chitral because of “the delay in the registration of FIR, there was no direct evidence to support the prosecution story and that except for the motive itself, there was no substantial evidence to link the accused with the commission of offence,” according to the inquiry report available with ChitralToday.
A resident of the Brep village observed that there was no loopholes of whatsoever in the investigation of the murder case by the former SHO Muhammad Shafi Shifa but protests and filing of complaints against the SHO by the relatives delayed the case. He said the two accused had been set free on bail by court and the ex-SHO had nothing to do with it. He expressed the hope that based on the police investigation and challan submitted to court by the former SHO the family of the victim would now get justice.