A significant development emerged over ten days after a young woman was strangled to death by her brother in Toba Tek Singh, as other family members looked on. According to police reports, the prime accused, Faisal, confessed not only to murdering his sister, Maria, but also to raping her.
Maria met her tragic end on the night between March 17 and 18, and her body was quietly buried. However, a video capturing Faisal suffocating her as she lay motionless on a charpoy went viral shortly after. In the video, their father, Abdus Sattar, can be seen offering water to Faisal once the deed was done.
Following the viral video, Faisal and Abdus Sattar were arrested, and Maria’s body was exhumed for forensic examination. Preliminary medical findings confirmed Maria’s death as unnatural, with her neck bones found broken.
During police interrogation, Maria’s other brother, Shehbaz, revealed that both Faisal and Abdus Sattar had sexually assaulted Maria multiple times before her murder.
Initially allowed two days for interrogation, Faisal and Abdus Sattar were brought before a local magistrate on Saturday, where they were remanded into police custody for another four days. It was during this time that Faisal confessed to both rape and murder.
In a parallel development, sources informed that Shehbaz and his wife, Sumera, were arrested for allegedly aiding and abetting the crime. Though not officially confirmed, Shehbaz’s lawyer, Advocate Zafar Chaudhry, announced he would not represent them in court, asserting their equal responsibility for Maria’s death.
The FIR also shed light on the community’s knowledge of the incident, indicating silence due to familial ties within the Oudh community, to which Maria’s family belongs.
