Thaindian News

London, Sep 3 (ANI): The parents of Shafilia Ahmed, a British-Asian teenager whose dismembered body was found on a riverbank nearly seven years ago, have been re-arrested on suspicion of their involvement in her murder.

Ifitkhar Ahmed and his wife Faranza were taken to a police station in Runcorn, where they spent most of the day Thursday being questioned about their daughter’s disappearance in September 2003 and the discovery of her body five months later.

They had previously been arrested and bailed by police on suspicion of kidnapping in December 2004, but were never charged after the Crown Prosecution Service said that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.

After her disappearance, it emerged that Shafilia had refused to be part of an arranged marriage, and that during a visit to Pakistan to meet a prospective husband, she had swallowed bleach, causing injuries that required regular hospital treatment. Her father, however, claimed that she had drunk the liquid during a power cut, mistaking it for fruit juice.

According to The Telegraph, Shafilia was born in Bradford and dreamed of becoming a lawyer. The conflict she felt between her parents’ traditional Muslim values and the western culture she wanted to embrace was reflected in a series of song lyrics found in her bedroom.

In one song she wrote: “Desire to live is burning…but all they think about is honour. I was like a normal teenage kid, didn’t ask too much. I just wanted to fit in, but my culture was different.”

Seventeen-year-old Shafilea went missing from her home in Warrington in September 2003 and her decomposed body was found in the River Kent in Cumbria in January 2004.

Ahmed told the inquest looking into his daughter’s death that he had accepted her refusal to be part of an arranged marriage. The coroner, Ian Smith, concluded that Miss Ahmed had been the victim of “a vile murder”.

In 2008, he told an inquest that: “I believe she was taken from her home. I do not believe she ran away”. (ANI)