MANSEHRA: A man who allegedly stoned his wife to death and tried to portray the incident as a mountain-falling accident was arrested by police in the Ghanool valley area of Balakot tehsil on Sunday.
“We have arrested the accused, who had married the woman after she eloped with him and later allegedly killed her brutally,” Saddaqat Khan, SHO of Kaghan Police Station, told reporters.
The gruesome murder took place on August 12 in Manoor valley, where the accused, Rustam Dilpazir, allegedly took his wife to a mountainous area on the pretext of a recreational trip and stoned her to death.
“The accused, who had married her about 10 months ago after she eloped with him, allegedly stoned her repeatedly. After she succumbed to her injuries, he threw her body into a deep ditch to make it appear that she had died in an accident,” Khan said. He said police initially suspected that the woman had been killed rather than having succumbed to injuries sustained after falling from a nearby mountain at the crime scene.
“The accused performed all the burial rituals immediately after the incident in an attempt to conceal his brutal act, but we traced and arrested him,” he added. Safeer Ahmad, the brother of the slain woman, stated in the FIR lodged with police that his sister had married the accused of her own free will despite opposition from her family.
“The accused had recently contracted a second marriage with his former fiancée and, to get rid of my sister, killed her brutally and threw her body into a ditch to conceal his crime,” he alleged. According to police, the accused was arrested and produced before a court in Balakot. The judge sent him on judicial remand after he allegedly confessed to the crime.
