Murderess cosies up to victim’s family
Nadeem Saeed
More than five months after the ‘murder’ of Ayesha Rasheed, the Multan police are still looking for clues. But for once, the police are not to blame for the delay. Ayesha’s parents realised that their daughter was murdered four months after her death. Even more startling is the fact that while Ayesha’s widower has since been booked for murder, her self-confessed murderess is comfortably ensconced in Ayesha’s family home.
A young mother of two, Ayesha was brought to Nishter Hospital by her husband Shehzad Rasheed and parents on November 6, 2003, with multiple burn injuries. According to the story, Shehzad and her parents told the hospital authorities, Ayesha had been cooking when her clothes accidently caught fire. When Ayesha’s condition deteriorated overnight, her parents chartered a plane to shift her to the sophisticated burns unit at Kharian Combined Military Hospital. However, she did not respond to treatment and died a week later.
On March 9, 2004, Ayesha’s parents and her brother Masna Razi suddenly realised that Shehzad had killed her. “My poor daughter had been unhappily married for 10 years,” claimed Ayesha’s father Munir Shah in the FIR. Shehzad’s avaricious nature, alleged his former father-in-law, had him demanding monetary favours from them under various pretexts. Shehzad was also accused of being sexually intimate with the couple’s 14-year-old maid Shumaila. “Ayesha caught her husband and the maid red-handed a day before she was burned,” says Shah. “Since then, Shehzad had been pressurising his wife to grant him permission for contracting a second marriage.” The motive ostensibly established, the police took Shehzad into custody. Later, Ayesha’s parents brought Shumaila to the police station to confess. Shumaila claimed that the lovers decided to murder Ayesha after she discovered them in flagrante delicto. According to this story, Shumaila gave Ayesha a glass of drugged water and when the latter fell unconscious, her husband doused her with kerosene oil. Shumaila also admitted to being the one who set Ayesha ablaze. Shehzad, however, insists that he has been framed by Ayesha’s parents.
Damn!such a tragic incident…she was so pretty
