Italian-Pakistani girl Sana Cheema was strangled: Forensic report

GUJRAT - An Italian-Pakistani woman, who breathed her last in Gujrat city of Punjab last month, was strangled to death, confirmed a forensic report revealed on Wednesday.

According to the Punjab Forensic Laboratory report, Sana Cheema’s neck bone was found broken after the police exhumed the body of the 26-years-old girl.

The case of Cheema came to light last month when suspicions were raised over the 'accidental' death of the girl, as claimed by the family members.

Soon the police launched an inquiry into the death, keeping in view the aspect of 'honour killing'. According to the police, the girl’s father, identified as Ghulam Mustafa, wanted to marry her off to his relative but Sana wanted to get hitched of her own choice in Italy.

Irked by the refusal, the father then consulted his son, Adnan Mustafa, and brother, Mazhar Iqbal, and hatched a plan to kill her a day before she was expected to return to Italy. She was later buried in West Mangowal area of District Gujrat.

However, a week after the burial, her body was exhumed and samples were sent for post-mortem after which the forensic team confirmed that the cause of death was strangulation.

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Sana's family bolstered their claims of an accidental death by furnishing the medical tests, proving that the girl was taken to hospital on April 11 for blood pressure and stomach ache.

The police also looked into the prescriptions along with hospital and medical store bills.

The issue had an international angle attached to it because the Italian foreign ministry had stated that it had kept an eye on the case.

Moreover, the social media also rallied behind Cheema and demanded justice in the case. Twitter trends #JusticeforSana and #TruthforSana also garnered thousands of tweets.

Sana had been living in Italy since 2002 and was to return to Brescia before she was killed. The Italian news agency ANSA said she got the Italian citizenship in September last year.

Sana Cheema is not the first girl to have been killed for honour despite strict laws in Pakistan. In 2016, Samia Shahid, a British-Pakistani woman was strangled to death by her former husband when she was visiting her family in Pakistan.