Two Spanish-Pakistani sisters were shot dead in Gujrat on Saturday. Police on Sunday claimed to have arrested all the accused, including the brother and uncle of deceased Spanish sisters, who have confessed to their crime.
Both the sisters, Anisa Abbas, 24, and Urooj Abbas, 21, residents of Nathia village of Gujarat district, returned to Pakistan from Spain on May 19, along with their mother Azra Bibi.
On the night of May 20, the two sisters were shot dead in the house of their maternal uncle, Hanif alias Goga. The police registered a case on the complaint of ASI Yasir Nadeem against seven suspects and two unidentified persons. All the accused managed to flee the scene.
“The family created a story to convince them to come to Pakistan for a couple of days,” said Gujrat police spokesperson Nauman Hassan.
Police said the women were being “pressurized” by their spouses — who were also their cousins — to aid their emigration to Spain. Gujarat DPO Ataur Rehman said that the preliminary investigation has revealed that the two sisters were married to their cousins a year ago and now they wanted a divorce from their husbands.
Sisters tricked into returning home
The sisters wanted to marry someone else in Spain and they had been tricked into returning home with their mother, the official added.
The police officer said when the two sisters refused to sign papers to enable their husbands to emigrate to Spain and demanded a divorce, a bitter argument broke out between them, and later they were tortured before being killed.
Azra Bibi, the mother of the victims, said a few moments before the incident, that she tried to protect her daughters. However, she was locked in a separate room. Guliana Police Station SHO Shiraz Haider said that Azra Bibi did not want to be a plaintiff in this case so the police became the party.
Suspects arrested
Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shahbaz took a notice of the murder of two sisters and directed to ensure the expeditious arrest of the accused involved in the incident and stern action be taken against them according to the law.
The police on Sunday claimed to have arrested all the accused, including the mastermind, involved in the murder of Spanish sisters, identified as Aneesa Abbas and Arooj Abbas, within 48 hours, who confessed to the crime.
The main accused, Shehryar Abbas and Hanif, brother and uncle of the deceased women, besides five others Qasid, Atiq, Hasan, Asfandyar, and one unidentified, were reportedly arrested. Confirming the arrest of the accused, Gujrat District Police Officer Ataur Rehman said the accused had killed the two women two days ago.
The country’s deeply patriarchal society continues to see hundreds of women murdered each year by their families in “honor” killings for violating conservative social norms about women’s way of living.
Another case of honor killing occurred recently when a girl came home to her family to celebrate Eid with them, but she was killed by her brother for dancing and modeling. Two years back, a girl and boy were killed in Peshawar and were buried without even a Namaz-e-Janaza.
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