12-Year Old Skeletal Remains of a Woman Found in a Garbage Dump in Karachi

On Thursday, the skeletal remains of a woman who’d died around 12 years ago were found in the garbage dumps of Karachi’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal area.

When discovered, the Johar police shifted the remains to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for postmortem, and later took it to the Edhi morgue.

The SHO Shah Jahan Lashari of Gulistan-e-Johar said that the woman has been identified as 65-year old Zakia Bibi. She died some 12 years ago, and the samples have been sent for further chemical analysis to determine the cause of her death.

The SHO continued to say that Zakia’s son, Qaiser and daughter, Shagufta, had kept the body in their apartment instead of burying it. In the meanwhile, they moved out of the place. About four monthhs ago, Qaiser himself passed away and Shagufta died 10 days ago.

On Sunday, Zakia’s brother Mehboob Alam went to clean the apartment where he discovered the body lying on a mattress. He removed his sister’s body and dumped it in a garbage dump near Nipa Chowrangi.

Lashari added that Alam had told the neighbours and the apartment unuin of his discovery, and that he had gotten rid of the body. Residents then informed the police, who then arrested Alam and recovered the body. He also said that Zakia’s children were mentally ill, and Alam himself was also going through depression.

Alam told the media that he hadn’t known of his sister’s death.

“My nephew and niece had not been in contact with the rest of the family for many years. I do not know when my sister died,” he said, adding that both his nephew and niece had also recently passed away.

Alam said that he found the body when he went to clean the apartment, and threw it away for the same purpose.

In a CCTV footage, it was revealed that alam was sighted emerging from the apartment building with the body wrapped in cloth. He put the body in a car that was being driven by his son, who drove away while Alam went back into the apartment.

He also said that there were a lot of complaints about the stench coming from the apartment, but nobody was allowed to go inside. Even the union members once tried to break the lock but were unable to.

Sarfaraz, a resident, said that Qaiser and Shagufta used to visit the apartment multiple times a week and also paid the union fees on a regular basis, but stopped several years ago.