Sharjah neighbourhood shocked at Pakistani's body found in car

A 36-year-old mother of four found dead in her car parked close to her home in Sharjah's Yarmouk neighbourhood was 'quiet but friendly', neighbours say.

SHARJAH // Neighbours of the Pakistani woman who was found dead in a car parked near her home last week have described their shock at hearing of her death.

Police are investigating the death of the 36-year-old woman after her body was found in a Mercedes near the Ethiopian cafe in the Yarmouk area shortly after midnight on Thursday.

People living nearby described the mother of four and her family as quiet but friendly people who had lived in the area for a number of years.

Zubair, the owner of the Al Dalil neighbourhood grocery store, said he knew the dead woman and her children as they visited his shop every few days to buy essentials.

“They were good people, good customers, good neighbours - good everything.”

He added the incident had shocked the entire neighbourhood.

“I have seen her for some years. She stayed at home, that means she was a housewife. She always came to my grocery to buy some sweets or chips or other things for her children,” said Zubair.

“Often she would came with her youngest baby in her arms. Sometimes she would call us to deliver something to her flat or ask her eight-year-old son, who was called Billal, to come and buy from us.”

The deceased and her family lived in a flat in building number 17 among the old municipality buildings behind Sharjah Gold Souq and just opposite the Ethiopian cafe where her body was found.

The flat’s door was closed when The National visited yesterday, with post including an electricity bill and a few advertisement leaflets for pest control companies piled outside.

“We have heard that the wife died but have not seen anyone in the house for some days,” said an Egyptian bachelor who lives opposite the family’s home.

“We have seen police both in uniform and civilian clothes coming and going, a few of my roommates told me some policemen asked them if they knew the family well and when they last saw the wife or husband.”

The man, who preferred not to be named, said the family included four children. The eldest child was one about eight and the youngest about a year old.

He added they rarely mixed with their neighbours as most of them are single men. The building is among the few remaining in Sharjah that allows bachelors to live alongside families.

An Indian woman who also stays in the building said the family was quiet and reserved but would exchange greetings whenever they met in a corridor or at the nearby grocery shop.

“We do not know much about them but it is shocking,” she said, also preferring to remain anonymous.

A spokesman for Sharjah police operations room said officers received a call after midnight on Thursday from a resident reporting there was a dead body in a Mercedes with a Dubai number plate parked behind a cafeteria in Yarmouk.

“The woman’s body had some wounds, likely to have been inflicted as part of her murder,” said the spokesman.

The public prosecutor ordered the body and the car both to be taken to police forensic laboratory to help in the investigations.

A spokeswoman for the Pakistan Consulate in Dubai, which also covers the Sharjah area, said officials were in close contact with detectives investigating the murder.

"Our community welfare officer is in contact with the CID but as this is an ongoing investigation we have not been given any more information than what is already in the public domain," she said.

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* With additional reporting by Nadeem Hanif