ISLAMABAD: Police have arrested a suspect in connection with the alleged admission fraud that preceded the death of Laiba Ijaz, a gold-medal graduate of the International Islamic University Islamabad.
The suspect was detained in the capital’s H-13 sector, where he had rented a room and was living in hiding, sources said. Investigators reportedly recovered evidence from his mobile phone pointing to online fraud and the blackmail of women.
Laiba, in her early twenties and a resident of G-10 Markaz, was found dead on Friday in a green belt near Itwar Bazaar, within the limits of Ramna police station. Police are treating the death as a suspected suicide and say a post-mortem examination and further investigation will establish the exact circumstances.
Her family says she had been defrauded over admission documents for a university in the United States. According to the family, an immigration consultant demanded Rs7 million for the admission; her father, who sells milk for a living, sold his plot of land and paid Rs2.1 million in cash, while her mother’s jewellery was deposited with a bank to arrange the remaining sum.
The family alleges the consultant provided a forged scholarship letter, purportedly from Harvard University, and posed at different times as an accounts officer of the Islamabad High Court and as an officer of a sensitive institution. They further allege he took an additional Rs500,000 after promising a government job for Laiba’s brother.
In a final message to her maternal uncle, Laiba reportedly wrote: “Do not tell my father about the fraud committed against me. He will die.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed the Islamabad police chief and the chief commissioner to apprehend those responsible. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi visited the bereaved family, and the Federal Investigation Agency has also taken notice of the case.
The suspect had previously served in the Anti-Corruption Establishment in Quetta but was suspended from service, sources added.
