Woman murdered by husband over ‘affair suspicion’

Karachi

Yet another woman fell prey to our society’s misconstrued notions of ‘honour’ on Friday as the city police reported the brutal murder of a 35-year-old woman at the hands of her husband in Landhi. 

The case follows a script that Pakistanis have become tragically immune to; suspicions over the woman’s ‘character’, fears of an extramarital affair and one more victim of so-called honour killings. 

As they say, the devil is in the details and the police’s description of the method of murder matched its brutality. The victim, 35-year-old Sajida, and the murderer, her husband Muhammad Younus, had a heated argument at their residence in Future Colony which culminated with the man attacking his wife with a kitchen knife.

After stabbing the victim multiple times, the killer slit Sajida’s throat and fled the house, leaving her for dead. Police later shifted the body to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.

The case investigators told the media that the victim was a native of the Hazara region who was most likely murdered over suspicions regarding an extramarital affair. The killer, however, was yet to be arrested but police claimed efforts were being made in this regard.

Yesterday’s ‘honour killing’ came on the heels of Thursday’s double murder in Chak 56, located over 50 kilometres northeast of Multan, in which a mother-of-three and the man she was allegedly having an affair with were hanged from a tree, with police blaming her husband, brother and father for the killings.

Karachi too has seen more than its fair share of gender-based violence this year, with at least four such murders reported just in the month of August.

On August 25, according to the Gabol Town police, 42-year-old Fareeda was stabbed multiple times by her husband, Khan Barak, at their residence in Rajput Colony, New Karachi.

The woman was a mother-of-two and hailed from Swat. The killer had managed to make a getaway in this case too.

Before that, on August 17, Raheem Dad, who had recently spent 12 years in prison for murdering his first wife killed his second spouse, 35-year-old Fauzia, at their Metroville residence. After committing the murder, the man turned himself in to the SITE-A police station. On August 14, Ashiq Hussain shot dead his 26-year-old wife, Shabana, after the couple had a fight at their Gulshan-e-Sikanderabad residence. Police had claimed the killing was an incident of ‘honour’ killing. The murderer had fled the crime scene and is yet to be arrested. 

The first of August’s gender-based murders was reported on August 12 when 25-year-old Zohra was tortured by her husband who then smashed her skull with a rock at their Afghan Basti over a domestic issue. The killer had fled the scene.