Pak honour killing: Samia Shahid texted friend 'she might die' before being killed

Police said that Samia was raped by her ex-husband with the help of her father before being murdered.

Islamabad

: In a recent development in the Samia Shahid murder case, it has emerged that the victim, before her murder, had sent a text message to her friend asking her to pray that 'she came back alive' from her native place in Pakistan.

According to a report in the Independent, Samia Shahid, 28, who hailed from Bradford, had texted her friend hours before boarding a flight to Pakistan.

Samia, a resident of Dhok Pandori village, some 230 km from Lahore, had come to Pakistan from Dubai in mid July to see her ailing father and was found dead on July 20. Her father claimed that she died due to cardiac arrest.

Initially her family played innocent, but autopsy reports revealed that Samia was raped and murdered.

The murder would have gone unnoticed but British MP Naz Shah in a letter alerted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that it could be a case of honour killing.

A high-level inquiry headed by Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Abu Bakar Khuda Bakhsh concluded that she was murdered.

Police sources said that Shakil, who is also Samia's cousin, confessed strangling her to death as she married another man of her choice.

Syed Mukhtar Kazim, second husband of Samia, had told police that his wife had been killed by her family members for marrying against the will of her parents.

Kazim and Samia, both British-Pakistani dual citizens, had been married for two years and were living in Dubai. A beauty therapist from Bradford, Samia had previously been married to her first cousin Shakil but the couple parted ways after divorce in May 2014. She then married Kazim.