An Ahmadi professor, Tahira Abdullah, was found stabbed to death on Tuesday in her house in the residential colony in the University of Punjab.
After retiring from PU’s Molecular Genetics department, Professor Abdullah was working on a contractual basis at the varsity. She had been living alone after the death of her husband, who died a few years back.
Police officials told local news publication that professor’s daughter Alina, who lives in Karachi, had been calling her mother since last night but was not able to contact her, so she called her neighbours when she couldn’t reach her mother on cell phone.
The neighbours reached out to the PU administration saying they suspected something was wrong. When PU guards broke open her door between 9am and 10am, they found Professor Abdullah lying in a pool of blood with stab wounds on her upper body.
PU spokesperson Khurram Shehzad said police was called in immediately. Officials of the Punjab Forensic Agency along with Counter Terrorism Department DIG and Iqbal Town SP also reached the site. He further said Professor Abdullah had reported a robbery in her house almost a year ago.
“The university administration will extend its full cooperation to the police for the investigation,” Shehzad said.
SHO Ali told a private news publication that there was no evidence break-in as all doors were locked, it seemed like someone she knew had killed her. Only a phone was missing from the house, while the money in her purse remained untouched, he said.
The body has been shifted to a hospital for post-mortem. An FIR has been registered upon her daughter’s complaint.
The spokesperson for the Jamaat Ahmadiyya Pakistan, Saleemuddin, said Professor Abdullah was Ahmadi and it was very likely that she had been killed because of her faith.
In a statement, Punjab University Academic Staff Association President Javed Sami, Secretary Iftikhar Ahmad Tarrar and others condemned the murder.
Police is still trying to determine if her faith was the reason behind the murder.