In court, man confesses to murdering stepbrother

The 30-year-old man arrested by the Mastuj police on the charge of murdering his 13-year-old stepbrother has confessed to the crime in the court.

According to the district police officer of Upper Chitral, the murder of the boy, Sheraz Ahmed, was a test case and the police worked on all angles and prepared a strong case using all scientific resources and human intelligence.

Sheraz went missing on February 25 and the next day his dead body was recovered from a snow-covered forest area near his home in Raman village of Laspur valley.

The police registered a case over the disappearance of the boy on the complaint of his father Sher Muhammad on Feb 26.

However, section 302 was added to the FIR on March 6 after the boy’s mother in her statement to the police suspected that her stepson Eidur Rehman had killed Sheraz for property. 

The police had already gotten a postmortem conducted on the body and collected other evidence and arrested the suspect.

As the investigation continued, social media users accused the police of trying not to take the case seriously. 

However, the district police officer of Upper Chitral told Peshawar-based senior journalist Sirajuddin on Wednesday that they had prepared a strong case and presented it in court along with the accused. The alleged killer also confessed to murdering the boy, he added.

The DPO told Mr Sirajuddin that Eidur Rehman showed the police investigators the crime scene where he had strangulated the boy.

Rehman told the investigators that at about 10am on Feb 25 when there was light snowfall, he took Sheraz out of their house on the pretext of going for a walk and reached the forest area and overpowered and strangulated him there. After the boy passed away, the culprit took out the lace of his shoes and put it around his neck to portray it as a suicide. 

The culprit did not return to his home after commiting the heinous crime and went to the houses of some relatives in nearby villages. Upon returning home in the late afternoon, he joined local people who were searching for the boy.

The DPO said that as the dead body was lying in a depression among stones it was not visible due to snowfall on it. The locals searched for Sheraz in the area but couldn’t see it. Later, the alleged killer himself spotted the body as one shoe of the victim was protruding out of the snow.

The police said that in most cases suspects confess to their crime in police custody but deny it in court. But in this case, the killer confessed to killing the boy when he was produced before a judicial magistrate.

The DPO said that they used all available resources to probe the matter when most of the people of the village and even father of the boy seemed not forthcoming and trying to save the murderer. He said women police officials in plainclothes were also sent to the village disguised as surveyors for the BISP who collected key information during their private conversations with the local people.

The police expressed the hope that the trial of the case in the court would reach conclusion without any delay and the killer would be brought to justice.