The Pakistani consul in Barcelona, Mirza Salman, appeared this Friday to explain that, yesterday, a police operation in that country made it possible to save the mother and a little brother of Arooj and Aneesa, the two girls from Terrassa (Barcelona) murdered in Pakistan for refusing to continue their marriages of convenience.
"Six agents of the Pakistan National Police are now guarding the mother and her nine-year-old son and in two or three days they will return to Barcelona, where the Generalitat has offered them a protected flat," Salman explained.
The girls' mother, Azra Bibi, had traveled to Pakistan with her children and remained isolated in the room of a house in the family village, Mouza Nothia, in Gujrat (eastern Pakistan).
Ella's daughters Arooj and Aneesa, whom the family had married to cousins years earlier, landed in the country on May 19, just 24 hours before the massacre.
The double murder occurred because the young women refused to bring their husbands to Spain and requested a divorce.
Until now, the Gujrat police had reported that a group of six relatives – including two brothers of the victims and their husbands – had attacked the girls and shot them dead.
The consul in Barcelona has offered more details of the facts.
“She [referring to her mother] heard the shots that ended the lives of her daughters.
The minor [Aneesa, 21 years old] was shot in the head.
The eldest [Arooj, 24] is still unknown to us but she was also shot to death,” she notes.
Police arrived in town after someone reported hearing gunshots.
It was the agents who managed to free the woman from inside the room.
According to various sources, Azra Bibi's life was also in danger.
She barely had time to be present at the hasty burial of her daughters until she was taken to safety.
The woman later went to the country's capital, Islamabad, but there was a pending problem: her young son was still in the hands of her husband's family.
According to the investigators, one of the brothers of the victims (Shehryar Abbas) and one of the uncles (Mohammad Hanif) were the material authors of the deaths.
“Yesterday we made a video call from the Mossos d'Esquadra with Azra.
She said that she was scared for her life.
That her nine-year-old son had stayed with the brother of Azra's husband who is also the father-in-law of one of the deceased and that he could have something to do with the crimes, "says the consul.
The consular body mobilized the “Pakistan intelligence service” and the Pakistan National Police.
“Today they have told us that they have managed to free the minor, they have the passports and there are half a dozen agents guarding the safety of Azra and her son”, the consul was proud.
“In two or three days they will return to Barcelona.
Now the mother of the minors is not in danger.
And everything indicates that the uncle of the victims is one of those who has orchestrated the crimes, ”she has pointed out.
The consul has reported that seven people have been arrested and the investigation is still open.
“With the intervention we have carried out, perhaps we have avoided a second tragedy, since the mother's life was really in danger,” he warns.
commotion in the village
Meanwhile, the town of Nothia Mouza tries to recover from a collective tragedy.
The Efe agency has collected the testimony of relatives who affirm that the girls were "killed like animals" in one of the so-called "honor crimes", of which almost 500 were registered in Pakistan last year alone.
The girls' blood was still in the room where they were killed.
The girls called for help, but no one in the village came to their rescue.
The murder occurred, details the agency, at the home of Aneesa's in-laws, where her cousin Atiq lived, who at the same time was her husband.
She had been married to him against her will two years ago, when she was barely 18. Later, back in Terrassa (Barcelona), where the family home is, she made her own life and ended up having a relationship with another Pakistani boy from Barcelona.
One of the reasons for the murder was the girls' refusal to use their residence permits in Spain to facilitate the arrival of their husbands in Europe.
"I was on the street and I saw Aneesa leaving her house yelling 'Help, help!' Rehman Sohail, a 25-year-old neighbor, told Efe that he saw how the brother, Shehryar, grabbed his sister by the hair while in the other hand he held a pistol.
"Get away or I'll shoot you, it's a family matter," he told her, according to this witness.