C T Online Desk: Australian police have arrested a Pakistani-origin man over the murder of his wife, a Bangladesh-born student of medicine, just weeks after their marriage in Sydney.
Law enforcers found the body of 19-year-old Arnima Hayat in a bathtub filled with hydrochloric acid on Sunday at her home in North Parramatta, triggering a search for her partner Meraj Zafar.
The 20-year-old gave himself up at Bankstown police station on Monday before being arrested and charged with the Arnima’s murder, reports The Guardian.
The accused did not apply for bail and bail was formally denied in Bankstown Local Court the next day before being remanded. He is set to appear in Parramatta Local Court on April 5 via audio visual link.
Police say Meraj killed Arnima between Saturday and Sunday, according to court documents.
Parramatta Superintendent of Police Julie Boon on Monday said it was hard for the policemen who found Arnima, after her family called the authorities with concerns for her wellbeing.
“The scene was very challenging for arriving police. When they did arrive and found chemicals at the unit, they retreated and called other units,” she said.
Police on Monday confiscated the truck Meraj is believed to have been driving after Arnima’s body was found and it will undergo forensic examination, reports PerthNow.
Arnima cleared her Higher School Certificate exams with flying colours from Tempe High School before attending Western Sydney University to study medicine, and had told her parents that she had planned to become a surgeon.
Her father, Abu Hayat, came to Australia first in 2006. This followed his wife bringing Arnima, with the couple’s second daughter being born in Australia.
Abu said he had sought the police’s advice, but had been told that nothing could be done “because they are in love” after Arnima announced her plan to marry Meraj, reports The Daily Mail.
The relationship with Meraj led to Arnima cutting all contact with her family in October last year, the same time she moved into the North Parramatta flat with Meraj.
“Just two weeks ago Arnima, a studious but fun-loving ‘Aussie girl’ who weekly took her parents out for sushi and pies until she ceased contact with them six months ago, rang relatives in the US sounding upset,” reads The Daily Mail report.
Daily Mail Australia quoted Arnima’s parents as saying that they are struggling to cope with the horrific way their daughter died, reportedly submerged in a bathtub filled with hydrochloric acid.
They lamented that they would not be able to see their “daughter’s beautiful face” before laying her in the grave because the only part of the 19-year-old’s body not destroyed was one of her feet.
“We have lost a young soul within our community, someone who I have seen grow up in front of my eyes,” Canterbury Bankstown Councillor Sazeda Akter wrote on Facebook.
