Two Spanish sisters of Pakistani origin, who were slain by relatives, were emotionally blackmailed to come to Pakistan on the pretence that their mother was dying and wanted to see them.
Both sisters came to Pakistan a day before their murder on May 20 after being misled about their mother’s illness.
A close relative of victims Arooj Abbas and Aneesa Abbas informed that on Monday that Azra Bibi(Mother) had also been relocated from village Nothia of Gulliana police precincts in Kharian tehsil after the burial of her daughters last Saturday because of danger to her life.
Hassan Aurangzaib, who was married to Arooj Abbas, allegedly threatened to kill the victim’s mother. Hassan is jailed. After the funeral, a relative escorted the mother out of the hamlet to a safer spot in another city. The woman is in contact with authorities and may provide a statement after recovering.
The mother was an eyewitness to the killings, and her account might be crucial, a Gujrat police officer said.
Locals and family sources say Azra Bibi’s in-laws locked her in a room when she arrived in Pakistan a few months ago and would not allow her to call her kids in Spain. Muhammad Abbas, the father of the dead, stayed in Spain and did not accompany his daughters to Nothia, where their murder was planned.
A family source alleged the perpetrators dragged and suffocated the sisters before shooting them. Fakhar Abbas, 12, the youngest brother of the deceased girls, has been missing since.
The mother was frightened about her youngest son since two of her sons, Shehryar, the primary suspect, and Asfandyar had already been detained along with four other suspects, the deceased’s uncles and cousins who were also their fiancés.
Azra Bibi had previously suffered the loss of her 18-year-old son, Haroon Abbas, who drowned in a Jhelum canal seven years earlier.
Two boys have been charged for killing their sisters, leaving the family in turmoil, a source claimed, adding that the suspects also objected to the sisters wearing western outfits. Sisters opposed their forced weddings to cousins and demanded a divorce, while relatives and parents in Pakistan asked them to speed visa paperwork for their husbands to go to Spain.
Seven nominated and two unidentified suspects were arrested in the sisters’ murder.
A Gulliana police ASI filed the complaint, and six individuals were detained. Farzana Haneef, Haneef’s wife, and two unnamed suspects remain at large.
All the accused suspects appeared before local judge Kharian on Monday, who remanded them to police until May 28.
