Man arrested months after killing Indian-origin Himanshi Khurana in Canada’s Toronto

Toronto, Aug 9 (IANS/WISHAVWARTA) Months after a 30-year-old Indian woman was found murdered in Canada’s Toronto, the police have arrested her partner, 32-year-old Abdul Ghafoori, local media reported, citing the officials.

The woman, identified as Himanshi Khurana, was found murdered in December last year. Police had called it an “act of intimate partner violence”.

Ghafoori, also a resident of Toronto, was arrested at the airport on Friday. He has been charged with the first-degree murder of Khurana, officials said on Saturday (local time).

According to the officials, Toronto’s fugitive squad and homicide unit coordinated with police services, both national and international, to bring Ghafoori back to Canada. However, the officials did not specify the country he had been in.

Khurana had been found dead on December 20 last year.

Officials had said that on December 19, they had received a missing person’s report in the Strachan Avenue and Wellington Street West area. The next day, they made the grim discovery when the missing female, Khurana, was found dead inside a residence.

Police had confirmed that the victim and the suspect were known to each other. After the initial investigation, the case was declared a homicide.

The Indian Consulate General in Toronto had expressed grief over the murder of the Indian-origin woman and had stated that officials have been closely following the matter over the past few days and that all possible assistance was being extended to the family in close coordination with Canadian authorities.

Abdul Ghafoori was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for first-degree murder, a charge that can carry a sentence of life imprisonment without parole if premeditation and intent are established in court.

Officials stated that legal proceedings are underway.

Further details are awaited.

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