MULTAN/LAHORE: The officer of Multan city police who was handling model Qandeel Baloch’s murder case has been suspended from his duties on Tuesday for showing ignorance in case proceedings.
Qandeel Baloch was a social media celebrity who was strangled to death by her own brother in the name of honour in her hometown Multan on July 14, reason being her bold videos and ‘selfie’ pictures that she uploaded on her social media pages publicly.
Read more: Qandeel’s murder, another honour killing
Also read: Brother is not embarrassed
CPO Azhar Akram summoned Muzaffarabad police station SHO Saeed Gujjar and investigation officer Ilyas Haider to his office and asked why Qandeel’s brother Waseem had been produced before an area magistrate only a day after a local court had granted his three-day physical remand. After hearing them, the CPO suspended the investigation officer and handed over the task of probe to a woman inspector, Attiya Jaffari.
Also read: Mufti Qavi to be probed in Qandeel’s case
Since the magistrate sent the suspect on a 14-day judicial remand on Tuesday, police could not take him to a forensic lab in Lahore for DNA and polygraph tests to complete the investigation. Police later filed an appeal in the court to get physical remand of the suspect, which would be decided on Wednesday (today).
CPO Akram said the new woman investigation officer had issued notices to various people, including Mufti Abdul Qavi and the slain model’s former husband Ashiq Hussain, under Section 160 of the Pakistan Penal Code in the light of the statement of Qandeel’s mother.
He said police had obtained the mobile phone data of Qandeel and her brother and would take the suspect to the forensic lab for DNA and other clinical tests.
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A police officer stated that an investigation required polygraph and DNA tests in order to verify the truthfulness of suspect’s claims.
Polygraph is an instrument that is usually known as ‘Lie detector’ which measures and records physiological changes in blood pressure, pulse, respiration and skin conductivity while the subject answers a series of questions, in an anticipation that deceptive answers will produce physiological responses that can be differentiated from those associated with non-deceptive answers.
The CPO said he had constituted two teams headed by the SSP operations and prosecutors would also be consulted to make the challan effective. He said police were also considering hiring the services of a private criminal lawyer.
“We are preparing the case in a way that its trial is concluded within three months,” he said, adding that a letter had been dispatched to the Karachi corps commander for recording the statement of Aslam Shaheen, the elder brother of Qandeel, who is serving in the army there.
The CPO disclosed that suspect Waseem had made calls to some people soon after the murder.
Meanwhile, talking to Dawn, Qandeel’s father Mohammad Azam and mother Anwar Bibi said the name of Aslam Shaheen was included in the FIR by them mistakenly and they would request the court to exclude his name from the case. They said they would ensure that Waseem was punished.
