Islamabad: Pakistani police have declared the death last month of a UK resident of Pakistani origin to be murder, a Pakistani investigator said Thursday.
A forensic examination concluded that Samia Shahid, 28, of Bradford was killed by asphyxiation, Deputy Inspector General of police Abu Bakar Khuda Bux, who is heading the investigative team, told The Associated Press.
"We're sure that it was a premediated murder," Bux said, adding that police were investigating Shahid's family members. Nearly 1,000 women are killed every year in Pakistan by family members in so-called "honor killings."
Shahid died in late July while visiting family in Pakistan of what were originally ruled to be natural causes. Her husband Mukhtar Kazim accused family members of killing her because Shahid had divorced her first husband, a cousin, to marry him.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan ordered the case reopened in response to his allegations. Khan has said that there have been contradictions in the statements by Shahid's family members after the case was reopened.
The forensic examination report shows a long mark on the left side of the woman's neck, Bux said, something which could be a sign of violence or a potential struggle.
Shahid travelled to her family home in Pakistan's Punjab province after she was told that her father was ill, Kazim has told local Pakistani media.
The latest case surfaced less than two weeks after taboo-defying social media celebrity Qandeel Baloch was strangled by her brother for posting racy photos that were deemed shameful in conservative Pakistan.
