By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: A man accused of defrauding a 20-year-old graduate who took her own life has been killed in Islamabad after being shot by his own accomplices as they tried to free him from police custody, officials have said.
Muhammad Noman, the prime suspect in an alleged US visa and scholarship scam that left the family of Laiba Ijaz millions of rupees poorer, died in hospital on Tuesday after the incident in the jurisdiction of Ramna police station, a police spokesperson said.
Police said Noman was being taken to a location to recover evidence, based on information he had given investigators, when four men on two motorcycles opened “indiscriminate fire” on the escort. The spokesperson said the gunmen were trying to secure his release, and that Noman was hit by bullets fired by his own associates.
The officers escaped unhurt, the spokesperson said, because of bulletproof jackets and other protective measures. Search operations were underway for the attackers, he added. The police account could not be independently verified.
Ijaz, a gold medallist who had completed a BS degree at the International Islamic University Islamabad, was found hanging from a tree beside a road in the capital on 9 October. Her family say they lost millions of rupees to a man who promised to secure her a place at a leading US university, with a scholarship.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has said Noman and a woman, named in its case as Fatima Sarwar, received a total of Rs9. from the family. The agency said Rs2.9m was paid through Ijaz’s own bank account and the rest in cash.
The agency alleges the pair fabricated scholarship award letters, university admission offers and fee payment receipts to convince the family the process was genuine. Its Anti-Human Trafficking Circle in Islamabad registered a case under sections of the Pakistan Penal Code covering cheating and abetment, read with provisions of the Emigration Ordinance, 1979.
A separate case was registered at Ramna police station under sections 322 (unintentional murder) and 34 (common intention) of the penal code. In the first information report, lodged on 10 October by Ijaz’s father, Muhammad Ijaz, Noman and a woman named Aiza were held responsible for his daughter’s death.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered the inspector general of Islamabad police and the chief commissioner to take immediate action against the suspects. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi called the investigation a “test case” for the authorities. Noman and two women accused of being his accomplices were then picked up in separate raids in the capital. Noman was arrested in the H-13 sector and brought before Judicial Magistrate Zunaira Zafar, who remanded him in police custody for five days.
According to police sources, Noman first met Ijaz in March 2023, when she applied for an internship at an insurance company where he worked. She did not take the job because she was giving tuition, but he later hired her, her sister and her mother to advertise a tuck shop.
The shop was run by a woman named Aiza, whose brother lived in the United States. When Ijaz asked for help with a US visa, Noman allegedly said he could arrange it through the brother.
The sources said Noman set up a second online account posing as Aiza and used ChatGPT to impersonate her and her brother in conversations with Ijaz. Other investigation sources have alleged he also used artificial intelligence to prepare fake visa documents, and that his phone has gone for forensic examination.
The sources said Ijaz became suspicious when Noman repeatedly moved her visa interview date, from 1 September to 17 September and then 26 September. She checked the documents and found they were fake.
She had by then handed Noman Rs2.1m, raised from her father’s sale of a plot, along with jewellery. The sources said she asked him to return the jewellery first, with the rest to be dealt with later, after which he stopped answering her. Her family said her mother sold her gold jewellery to help pay. The police sources described the jewellery as belonging to her stepmother.
The family said Noman presented himself as an accounts officer at the Islamabad High Court, and at other times as an employee of the superior judiciary or an officer from a “sensitive institution”. FIA director Shahzad Bukhari said Noman had claimed to be an accountant at the Supreme Court and was neither an agent nor a study consultant.
Ijaz’s maternal uncle, Rana Amjad, said the Harvard admission letter, scholarship letter and other documents proved to be fake when checked. He said she suffered severe distress and mental anguish once the fraud came to light. The family has demanded a thorough investigation, the arrest of everyone involved and recovery of the money.
Ijaz’s father, who sold milk from a motorbike and lived with the family in a rented flat, sold his plot to pay the agent.
Police suspect Noman may have defrauded other women. Investigators said he deleted data from his phone before his arrest, and they planned a forensic examination to recover it and identify further victims.
Local media reports have widened the picture. ARY News, citing sources, reported that Noman also issued fake job offer letters to at least nine people, none of whom had complained. It also reported that a separate fraud case against him had been registered in Mansehra. The same outlet reported that his brother is serving a jail term in Mansehra over a fraud case. Another report, citing sources, said Noman had previously worked for the Anti-Corruption Establishment in Quetta, where he was suspended.
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