Uzbek women’s murder: ‘We have been giving police all documents and information on a platter; we just want a fair probe’

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In September, when the family first heard of Shakhnoza’s abduction, they rushed to India hoping to find her. They drafted petitions and submitted them to the Embassy, the chief minister’s office and at various police stations while setting out to look for the missing woman.
Last week, police informed them that Shakhnoza’s charred body was found in Samalkha in Haryana district and that a DNA test conclusively proved that it was her. Yet, Shokhista and her daughters, Zamika (35) and Nadira (40), continue to be haunted by several unanswered questions.

Over the past month, the family has literally started a parallel investigation into the case and claim to have acquired much more information than what the police had gathered. From accessing call records of the two main accused – Gagan and Naaz (whose charred body too was found on Friday in Uttar Pradesh) — and that of Shakhnoza’s driver, Pritam, to knocking on the doors of every possible friend and acquaintance of Shakhnoza, the family has left no stone unturned.
“We have been giving police all documents and information on a platter. We just want a fair probe. They first asked for money to investigate, we said we will pay whatever they ask for. We just told them to bring our sister back or get to her killers,” Nadira, Shakhnoza’s elder sister, told The Indian Express.

“With the police dragging their feet on the case, we decided to investigate it all by ourselves. Yes, it is a foreign country for us but we are not leaving until we know what happened to Shakhnoza.”
Even as they look up Shakhnoza’s old friends and contacts and sit together at the end of the day trying to recreate the events leading up to her abduction and murder, they find several missing pieces in the puzzle.
So each morning they set out yet again, looking for new clues and new sources. Having spent over a month in Delhi and exhausting all their leads here, the family on Monday hired a cab and headed out of the city in search of a yet another clue. “We will hopefully come back with some solid leads on the case,” said Nadira.

On Thursday, while rummaging through Shakhnoza’s belongings, the family found a letter by Atazhanova Shaknoza Kupalbayevna alias Naaz, a close friend of Shakhnoza. Addressed to the Embassy, she sought help to get out of a forced prostitution racket. They mailed it to a friend and professional translator in the United States and later submitted a copy of the translated English version to the Embassy and police.

Uncertain of the veracity of the DNA test conducted by police, the family approached the Embassy, requesting them to ask for DNA samples to conduct another test by an independent international body.