Lahore: A British law graduate was strangled and shot to dead on a visit to Pakistan, local reports claim. Mayra Zulfiqar, 26, is said to have been shot by suspects who broke into her apartment in Lahore. She moved to Pakistan two months ago from Feltham, West London, and had been renting an apartment with a friend in the upmarket Defense area of Lahore where she was discovered dead by her uncle next to her phone, it is claimed.
A preliminary post-mortem examination revealed the law grad had been strangled and shot - with scars also found on her body. Zulfiqar started her law degree at Middlesex University in 2015, according to a LinkedIn profile purporting to belong to her. She spent her second year abroad in the university’s campus in Dubai before completing her undergraduate degree at the University of West London, where she stayed on to complete a master’s in international business and commercial law.
The aspiring “commercial arbitrator” had completed a five-month stint working as a caseworker for the West London Equality Centre, and most recently, worked as a paralegal at Reading law firm Duncan Blackett. In police reports filed by her uncle, it is alleged that two of her male friends fought to marry her but she had refused them both. Lahore Police are understood to be treating the murder as a crime of passion.
Station House Officer (SHO) Qasim, of Lahore Police, said the woman travelled to Pakistan from the UK to attend a wedding - but did not return. He said: “The woman had a bullet wound to the shoulder, but the exact cause of death will be known after her post-mortem and forensic report, whether the death was due to a gunshot wound or whether her throat was strangled.”
According to reports, her parents are understood to be travelling to Pakistan and police say no arrests have been made. One former neighbour paid tribute to her as a "happy young woman" and said he recalled seeing her coming to and from her family home in Feltham, Middlesex.
Two other men are also being probed by cops on suspicion of assisting the alleged killers. Police have not yet made any arrests. The crime scene has been cordoned off as forensic experts investigate.
