Not even a week since the alleged abduction of an Afghanistan envoy’s daughter in Islamabad, a former Pakistan diplomat’s daughter has been found murdered at her residence in the city.
The victim, identified as Noor Mukadam, was found shot dead at her house on Tuesday night. She was reportedly slaughtered after being shot at, said a report by local daily Dawn. The 27-year-old’s father, Shaukat Ali Mukadam, had been a Pakistani diplomat to South Korea.
Police have arrested Noor’s friend in connection with the murder. “A man named Zahir Jaffer, who was allegedly involved in the murder, was arrested on the spot and taken to the police station,” Samaa TV quoted the Islamabad police as saying.
Noor did her schooling in south Dublin for 12 years and was reportedly very good at academics. The woman’s tragic end has devastated her friends in Dublin.
Noor’s best friend Kim Kearns, a young woman from Dublin, told Dublin Live, “I’m feeling absolutely heartbroken. The news hasn’t even sunk in properly, to be honest. If she had died of natural causes it would have been easier but this. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t how that happened.”
Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri took to Twitter to condemn the gruesome act.
“Deeply saddened by the murder of the daughter of a senior colleague and former Ambassador of Pakistan. Heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family, and I hope the perpetrator of this heinous crime will be brought to justice,” Chaudhri said in his post with the hashtag #JusticeForNoor.
According to NDTV, Noor was murdered over a bad breakup with the suspect. Jaffar is reportedly the son of the CEO of a leading construction company in Islamabad. He is an alleged drug addict with psychological issues.
“It gives me shivers up my spine to think that this murderer (Jaffar) was someone whose chats regularly popped up in our WhatsApps and his face was often seen around,” Noor’s friend Simona Khan posted on Facebook.
The daughter of Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan Najibullah Alikhil was briefly abducted from Islamabad and tortured on July 16, the Afghanistan Foreign office said in a statement last week.
The relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been deteriorating amid rising violence in the latter, and the latest incident will undoubtedly worsen the ties between the neighbours.