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Samia faced death threats from family, says Bradford cleric

By Murtaza Ali Shah
July 30, 2016

Family says her marriage to Mukhar is ‘void’; Samia fell in love with Mukhtar in 2014 and they tied the knot secretly

LONDON/BRADFORD: The murdered British Pakistan girl Saima Shahid faced threats from her family and she feared that she may be harmed, a religious cleric in Bradford who solemnized her second marriage to Mukhtar Kazam has said.

Maulana Syed Muhammad Sibtain Kazmi told Geo News that on 1st May 2014, Samia Shahid approached him in his office along with witnesses to obtain “divorce degree absolute” against her first husband Muhammad Shakeel. Two witnesses who were present with Samia Shahid included “Syed Abbas” and “Syed Zille Shah”, both residents of Luton, who signed in the declaration of divorce. 

“Samia Shahid told me that her family was upset with her and might harm her because she had married someone from a different faith. Under oath, she told me that she had converted to her husband’s faith and was doing so happily. She told me under oath that her first marriage was a forced arranged marriage and she was pressurised into the first marriage by her family. She then went to Dubai and would sometime come to meet her family. She was threatened by her family members and she reported her relatives to the police who were cautioned by the police,” Sibtain Kazmi said.

Marriage certificate obtained by this correspondent shows that Syed Mukhtar Kazam and Samia Shahid solemnized their marriage at the Leeds town hall in the District of Leeds, the Metropolitan District of Leeds on 24th of September 2014. According to registration details, Kazam was aged 28 and Samia Shahid was 26 at the time of solemnization of the marriage.

Samia Shahid registered herself in the 'entry of marriage register' as ‘single'. According to her family in Bradford she was got married to her cousin Muhammad Shakeel in 2012 at a ceremony in Jhelum.

Waseem Nawaz, Samia’s paternal cousin and local Bradford businessman, who spoke to this correspondent said that it was a lie told to the marriage registrar that Samia was 'single'. He stressed that Samia was married to her cousin and had never applied for divorce and didn’t go for “Khulla”. 

He added: “I am sure that Kazam either lured Samia into a trap or made her to lie before the registrar.” It’s understood that Samia Shahid and Kazam got to know each other while Mukhtar Kazam was visiting the UK in the middle of 2014 and the couple fell for each other.

The tragic bride didn’t declare her second marriage to the family and her family in Bradford only found out about the marriage through her friends. Its understood that only a few members in her Bradford family were aware that she was married to Mukhtar Kazam but the Bradford family didn’t inform anything to Samia’s first husband or anyone else in Pakistanis side of the family. Family sources said that Samia visited Dubai often after her marriage but initially told the family in Bradford that she had found a job there and needed to live there.

Samia’s first husband came to pick her up around ten days ago when she visited Pakistan for the last time. Waseem Zafar said that her first husband has no idea what was going on and Samia didn’t tell him anything which showed “how confused she was and how trapped she felt”. Waseem Zafar said that Samia's marriage with Kazam stood "null and void" in the UK legal system because the UK law recognises Pakistani laws which stresses that “there can’t be a nikah over nikah under any circumstances”.

He said that Pakistani media only played one side of the story and maligned the family for no reason. “We have been put on media trial and no one has bothered to know what we have to say. We are saddened that Samia has died as she was dear to us all but to say that she was killed for the honour is not correct. We are being framed.”

Waseem Zafar said that after Samia was found dead, her father Muhammad Shahid himself contacted the police and asked the police to take the dead body to the hospital. When the hospital couldn’t find anything, Muhammad Shahid asked the police to help him in the postmortem of Samia’s dead body to establish facts around her death. “If my uncle was complicit in any manner he would never have involved the police and asked the doctors for postmortem. He wanted to know the facts about his daughter’s death. To say that he or anyone else is involved in the killing is plainly injustice.”

Waseem Zafar blamed Mukhtar Kazam for “deceiving” his impressionable cousin. Samia Shahid quit studies after GCSE and worked at a flower shop, post office and last worked as a beautician.

Samia's uncle Wahid Imran told Geo News that Kazam was interested in getting citizenship in the UK and hence he got into a relationship with Samia to fulfill his purpose of “staying in the UK”. 

This correspondent broke the story of Samia Shahid’s death in the 25th July edition of The News/Daily Jang. Following that, Geo News and the Guardian picked up the story and since then it has been in headlines. Samia Shahid died last week during a visit to relatives in Pandori in Northern Punjab, Jhelum. It has been alleged that she was killed after being threatened for marrying against her family's wishes.

The call for the investigation into Samia Shahid’s murder was led by Bradford West MP Naz Shah who has called on PM Nawaz Sharif to help investigate and establish full facts. “I’m not going to rest until I’m satisfied I know the cause of her death - we need to investigate it fully,” said Ms Shah.

“It’s very suspicious circumstances,” she added. Syed Mukhtar Kazam has said that before samia went to Pakistan from Dubai she has been threatened by her family. “They were threatening us because she got married out of the family with her own will and they didn’t like it”, he told Geo News.

Syed Mukhtar Kazam says Samia’s family hated him so much that he heard from her family that his wife had died of a heart attack after travelling from Dubai to Pakistan and that she was already buried. He is now calling for another postmortem examination to be carried out.