ISLAMABAD: A district and sessions Judge Shaista Khan kundi in Islamabad today remanded Zahir Zakir Jaffer — the primary suspect in Noor Mukadam’s brutal murder case — to judicial custody for 14 days.
The suspect was produced in the court of Judicial Magistrate Shaista Khan Kundi following the completion of his two-day remand granted on Saturday. The court accepted the police’s request for the suspect’s judicial remand and ordered for him to be produced before it on August 16.
The prosecutor told the court that police had, for now, completed their investigation with regards to the suspect and that they no longer required his physical custody. The judge responded that there was nothing like a “complete investigation for now”.
“A complete investigation is complete,” said the judge, adding that the police would keep bringing supplementary challans.
“Where is the accused Zahir Zakir Jaffer?” questioned the judge and asked him if he wanted to say anything to the court to which Jaffer responded that his lawyer would speak for him.
Noor, 27, daughter of former Pakistani diplomat Shaukat Mukadam, was found murdered at a residence in Islamabad’s upscale Sector F-7/4 on July 20.
Before her brutal murder, the accused tortured Noor Mukadam mercilessly with punches, kicks, knuckleduster, and then beheaded her in Islamabad.
A first information report (FIR) was registered later the same day against Jaffer, who was arrested from the site of the murder, under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of the victim’s father.
In his complaint, Shaukat Mukadam had stated that he had gone to Rawalpindi on July 19 to buy a goat for Eidul Azha, while his wife had gone out to pick up clothes from her tailor. When he had returned home in the evening, the couple found their daughter Noor absent from their house in Islamabad.
They had found her cellphone number to be switched off, and started a search for her. Sometime later, Noor had called her parents to inform them that she was travelling to Lahore with some friends and would return in a day or two.
The complainant said he had later received a call from the suspect, son of Zakir Jaffer, whose family were the ex-diplomat’s acquaintances. The suspect had informed Shaukat that Noor was not with him, the FIR said.
At around 10pm on July 20, the victim’s father had received a call from Kohsar police station, informing him that Noor had been murdered.
Police had subsequently taken the complainant to Zahir’s house in Sector F-7/4 where he discovered that his daughter has been brutally murdered with a sharp-edged weapon and beheaded, according to the FIR.
Shaukat Mukadam, who identified his daughter’s body, has sought the maximum punishment under the law against Zahir for allegedly murdering his daughter.
