A shopkeeper who murdered his pregnant wife before dissolving her body in acid later laughed about the gruesome murder with a friend.
Meraj Zafar, 22, pleaded guilty at the last minute this week to the murder of his wife Arnima Hayat, 19, on January 29, 2022, in the North Parramatta unit they shared.
The aspiring doctor had wanted to leave her abusive husband, whom she had married in a secret Islamic ceremony just four months earlier.
Hayat, a medical student at Western Sydney University, had sent a desperate message to a university friend on the night of her death.
“I have no one but you,” Hayat wrote to her friend.
He replied: ‘You have no choice. You have to stay with him.
Meraj Zafar, 22, pleaded guilty at the last minute to murdering his wife Arnima Hayat, 19, on January 29, 2022, in the North Parramatta unit they shared (the couple is pictured together).
The aspiring doctor had wanted to leave her abusive husband, whom she had married in a secret Islamic ceremony just four months earlier.
In a final message at 9:10 p.m., Mrs. Hayat wrote: “No, I hate him.”
Within 45 minutes, her husband had murdered her.
The facts of the case, heard in the New South Wales Supreme Court this week, reveal that Zafar killed his young wife “by applying compression to her neck and/or suffocating her”, reports the Daily Telegraph.
The day after the murder, Zafar drove twice to Bunnings in Northmead and bought a total of 100 liters of hydrochloric acid.
He searched the Internet: ‘Can hydrochloric acid burn the skin?’ and “how many years do you get in Sydney for murder?”
Mr Zafar then poured acid over Ms Hayat’s body in a bathtub “in an attempt to dispose of her remains”, according to the facts.
The construction apprentice then called his mother and told her that his wife was not breathing.
She advised him to call an ambulance but he refused, saying: “The police will catch me and put me in jail.”
He then asked how much a plane ticket abroad would cost, but his mother called an ambulance.
This led police to force entry into the apartment, where they discovered Ms Hayat’s partially dissolved body in the bathtub, but Zafar had fled the scene.
“Ms. Hayat was lying face down, with her face hidden and contorted in the middle,” the facts state.
“There was a strong chemical odor in the air that was overwhelming, and police evacuated the apartment due to the dangerous air quality emitted from the closed bathroom.”
Police were forced to wear protective suits before entering the bathroom (above) of the apartment where Hayat’s remains were allegedly immersed in an acid bath.
Pictured: The apartment block where Mrs Hayat was murdered by her husband.
While fleeing, Zafar told a friend: “I just killed someone, I swear to God I killed someone” and laughed, according to the facts.
He turned himself in to police on January 31.
Hayat’s parents previously told this publication that only one of their daughter’s feet was not destroyed by the acid, so they were unable to identify her.
It was not the first time Zafar attacked his wife.
In May 2021, he strangled her until she was unconscious after thinking she had been seen with another man.
Zafar will return to court on August 5 for sentencing.
The day after the murder, Zafar drove twice to Bunnings, in Northmead, and bought a total of 100 liters of hydrochloric acid.
Mr Zafar appears in an image released by New South Wales Police.
