The arrested suspect in the 11-year-old boy’s rape and murder case in Abu Dhabi is the brother of the victim’s stepmother, the boy’s relatives and family friends told Gulf News on Thursday.

The Pakistani man in his late 20s was working as a driver. His sister is the second wife of the boy’s father.

A relative said the suspect had continued visiting the victim’s family for three days after the incident, pretending that he knew nothing of the incident.

“He tried to be normal until he was arrested,” a relative, who did not want to be named, said after attending the boy’s funeral prayer in the capital.

The relatives and friends praised the clever and efficient means employed by Abu Dhabi Police to nab the culprit.

“Apparently, he found the boy as an impediment in the relationship between his sister and her husband and wanted to eliminate that annoying element,” said a relative.

As Gulf News first reported, Azan Majid Janjua, a fifth grader, went missing on May 30 and his body was found on the rooftop of his building the next morning. The boy’s father, Dr Majid Janjua, is a Pakistani medical doctor and the mother is a Russian whom the father met while studying medicine in Russia.

They had not been living together for a while and the boy was living with his mother in Russia. Azan started living with his father, stepmother and grandfather in Abu Dhabi more than two years ago and his mother used to visit him frequently.

When the Russian mother reached Abu Dhabi by night to visit her son on the fateful day, the boy had already gone missing, a friend said.

Scores of relatives and friends attended the funeral prayer for Azan on Thursday.

Dr Janjua who was receiving condolences in a composed manner in the beginning could not control his tears when some close relatives hugged him and consoled him.

The boy’s body will be flown to Pakistan on an Emirates flight from Dubai early on Friday and the burial will be done at Dr Janjua’s hometown of Sialkot the same day.

All family members including the father, mother and grandfather are expected to accompany the body.

Source: gulfnews.com