Man arrested for killing teenage stepbrother

MASTUJ: Police have arrested a young man on the charge of murdering his 13-year-old stepbrother in Laspur valley of Upper Chitral.

An official in the police told ChitralToday about the murder of boy in Laspur that Eidur Rehman, 30, had been taken into custody after collecting evidence in the murder case of Sheraz Ahmad, son of Sher Muhammad, in Raman village of Laspur.

Sheraz disappeared from his house on February 25 and the next day his dead body was recovered from a nearby forest.

According to a video circulating on social media, a piece of rope was found around the neck of the body with the face of the victim bloodied. Police later said part of the same rope was recovered from the house of the boy.

The father of the victim was not present at home when Sheraz went missing. He has two elder sons from his first wife while Sheraz was the only son from his second wife.

The police official told ChitralToday that based on the reports of the postmortem and other evidence the stepbrother had been taken into custody.

He said that the suspect had murdered the boy for property and tried to portray it as a suicide.

The FIR was registered about the disappearance of the boy on the complaint of his father on Feb 26. Later, the police recorded the statement of the boy\’s mother in which she said that she had gone to her cattle pen on Feb 25 morning and upon return at 11am she found her son Sheraz not present. Her daughter told her that Sheraz had gone to fetch rice from a shop in Harchin. However, he did not return prompting her relatives to start a search. Later, his dead body was recovered form a forest.  

The woman alleged that her stepson had murdered her only son in collusion with his unidentified accomplices. She said the suspect had also tried to harm Sheraz in the past.  The complainant said the alleged killer had objection that his father had allocated most of the property such as shops and poplar trees in the name of Sheraz.

The police said evidence was collected and a postmortem got conducted on the body on the basis of the allegations of the victim\’s mother and these evidence proved Eidur Rehman\’s involvement in the murder after which section 302 (premeditated murder) was added to the FIR on March 6, and the suspect was arrested.

According to the police, the suspect has also confessed to murdering the boy and dumping the body in Derkoch (forest) near his house.

Murder of boy in Laspur