A court in Lahore, Pakistan, has acquitted a man allegedly involved in the murder of an Indian Canadian businesswoman, who is a distant relative of former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, in 2012.
Hafiz Shahzad, who had confessed to Pakistan’s Intelligence Bureau about Rajvinder Kaur Gill’s murder, was acquitted as the prosecution could not establish the charges. The court gave him the benefit of doubt. Shahzad had told officials that his cousin Shahid owed Gill a large amount of money and offered to pay Shahzad to help him kill her.
Gill went to Lahore on Aug. 25, 2012, and the same day she was abducted and killed. The murderers laced her tea with a sedative and then strangled her. They then dumped her body in a canal. She reportedly had a laptop and $5 million with her, which they took.
Shahid Ghazanfar aka Karishna Roy was said to have escaped to Germany, since he was a naturalized German citizen. He is now facing trial in Canada.
Other reports indicated that Gill, a banker in Switzerland, was in Lahore to buy precious gems while another report said that she went to meet a prospective marriage interest after meeting him online on shaadi.com.
Sikandar’s counsel Aftab Ahmad Bajwa said Shahzad confessed that he and other accomplices had killed Rajvinder Kaur Gill over monetary matters and thrown her body into Khanpur canal on Sheikhupura Road (some 50 km from Lahore) the day she reached Lahore.
“We will challenge the acquittal in the Lahore High Court as police have enough evidence against the accused,” Bajwa said, according to PTI.
Gill, who was in her 30s, worked in a Canadian bank before moving to Switzerland. Her family received her messages a few hours prior to her death. Her parents filed a complaint in Canada after she went missing. Eventually, her father Sikandar Singh Gill, a former Indian Air Force employee, went to Pakistan to ensure that the investigation was being conducted properly. He also wrote to Badal to help him ensure fair trial.