Police Arrest Honour Killings Father For Plot To Murder Daughters
A father of two sisters shot dead by their relatives in Pakistan because they refused to bring their arranged husbands to Europe has been arrested.
Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalan police) and National Police arrested Ghulam Abbas in the city of Terrassa, Barcelona Province, on 22nd February.
Police believe Abbas, 53, was in on the plot to lure Arooj and Aneesa Abbas, 24 and 21, back to the family home in the village of Nothia, Gujrat District, Punjab Province.
It was there, on 20th May, that the young women were shot dead by their relatives after they refused to take the cousins they had been married off to to Europe.
The sisters had told their family that they wanted to divorce their arranged husbands and marry their boyfriends in Spain.
Their mother, Azra Bibi, witnessed the double murder but was unable to save them.
She returned to Spain with her youngest son days later following a police rescue operation in Pakistan.
She named her son Shehryar as the prime suspect.
Relatives had lured the sisters to Pakistan by pretending that their mother, who had travelled there on holiday with her three sons in March 2022, had taken seriously ill.
They had also told them, falsely, that Shehryar’s wedding was going to take place.
Investigators are now working to clarify if their father was in on the plot.
The father, a grocery store employee, was in Spain when the double killing took place.
His two eldest sons, Shehryar and Asfandyar, and four other family members were arrested and jailed on remand in Pakistan.
However, all were released on bail in October after Abbas allegedly granted a ‘pardon’.
The father is believed to have been furious that his daughters had rejected their arranged partners and begun relationships with other men in Spain.
Before travelling to Pakistan, Shehryar is reported to have stabbed the boyfriend of one of his sisters.
Abbas has since been released on bail but must remain in Spain and present himself to court officials fortnightly.
He is accused of involvement in homicide as an accomplice or instigator, coercion, and forced marriage.
His wife is not considered a suspect.
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