Sara Inam’s parents arrive from Canada for funeral

ISLAMABAD: The parents of Sara Inam — who had allegedly been killed by her husband Shahnawaz Amir, the son of senior journalist Ayaz Amir — have arrived in Pakistan from Canada.

According to police sources, the father of the victim Engineer Inam-ur-Rehman and his wife reached Islamabad to claim the body of their daughter and perform her last rites. Sara’s funeral prayers will be performed on September 28 after Zuhr in Shehzad Town, Islamabad.

Earlier on Monday, a local court in the federal capital extended the physical remand of senior journalist Ayaz Amir, who had been arrested a day prior, and Shahnawaz for one and three days, respectively, in the murder case of Sara, who was a Canadian national.

Shahnawaz allegedly killed his wife Sara at home after a row over a “family issue” on September 23. Shahnawaz — who was detained by the police from a farmhouse in Islamabad’s Chak Shahzad area for being a suspect in his wife’s murder — confessed to committing the crime and said that he “thought” his spouse was having an affair with someone else. The couple was married for just three months. In the police report registered following the murder, an additional clause of Section 109 (punishment for abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code was added at the request of Sara’s uncles — Colonel (R) Ikram and Zia-ur-Rahim — who have blamed Amir and his former wife for their niece’s murder.

Meanwhile, an additional sessions court judge accepted the pre-arrest bail plea of Shahnawaz’s mother Sameena Shah against a surety of Rs50,000 and directed her to join the probe within three days.

The court remarked that there is no allegation against Sameena as per the FIR. Amir’s ex-wife Sameena Shah approached the court for bail to avoid arrest in the murder case earlier in the day.

Filing for bail, Sameena maintained that Shahnawaz messaged her on WhatsApp about a rukhsati. She further stated that her son called her at 9:12am to tell her about the murder. “I rushed towards the room, but Sara had been murdered by then. I told Shahnawaz to stay in the room while Amir informed the police,” Sameena stated in the plea.

She said that the Islamabad Police reached the crime scene within minutes of being informed. Sameena requested the court to accept her pre-arrest bail plea, claiming that neither is she linked to the murder in any way nor is she an eyewitness of the crime. She also cited health issues while seeking bail.