Islamabad: A former Pakistani diplomat’s daughter has been murdered in Islamabad, according to a media report, just days after a major diplomatic row broke out between Pakistan and Afghanistan over the alleged abduction of the daughter of Afghanistan’s ambassador in Islamabad.
Noor Mukadam, 27, the daughter of Shaukat Mukadam, was found dead in the capital’s upscale Sector F-7/4 area last week, Dawn newspaper reported. Shaukat Mukadam has in the past served as Pakistan’s ambassador to South Korea and Kazakhstan. Noor was killed after being shot at, the daily quoted the police as saying. A friend of Noor has been arrested in connection to the murder, police said. “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 Islamabad police as saying.
Police, meanwhile, decided to seek a ban on foreign travels of the accused Jaffer, son of an influential businessman, who was a family acquaintance and in whose house the woman was found dead. Jaffer who had lived in the US and UK was reportedly trying to sneak out of Pakistan when arrested. To avoid any chance of his escape, IGP Islamabad asked the investigation team to ask the government to put his name on the Exit Control List
The killing comes as a storm brews over the safety of diplomatic missions and its personnel in Pakistan. On July 16, Silsila Alikhil, the 26-year-old daughter of Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan Najibullah Alikhil, was briefly abducted from Islamabad and tortured, the Afghanistan foreign office said in a statement last week. The incident triggered a major diplomatic row between the two neighbouring nations, which are coping with the resurgence of the Taliban as the US and Nato reach the final phase of their troop pull-out operation. Pakistan has stoutly denied the allegations made by Afghanistan, saying the police in Islamabad have found no supporting evidence of the alleged abduction.
