In the last contact a young, pregnant bride had with anyone besides her abusive husband, her opinion of the man her family didn’t want her to marry was clear.
Warning: This story contains details which may be distressing to some readers.
“I hate him,” Arnima Hayat told a friend hours before she died.
Almost three years later, Meraj Zafar was handed a two-decade jail sentence for killing the aspiring doctor before trying to get rid of her body in a chemical-filled bath.
The 23-year-old appeared via video-link in the NSW Supreme Court today as his sentence for Hayat’s murder was read out, while members of her family in the courtroom covered a screen with a jacket so as not to look at him.
Zafar had previously pleaded guilty to murdering the 20-year-old at their North Parramatta apartment in January 2022.
In the hours after the killing, he bought hydrochloric acid from Bunnings and used it in an attempt to dissolve her body in a bathtub.
Hayat was just 19 years old when she married Zafar in a private Islamic ceremony, which the court heard neither of their families attended nor supported.
Having migrated to Australia with her parents from Bangladesh when she was nine, she studied medical science and hoped to become a doctor.
On the evening of her death, Hayat messaged a friend, who told her she had no choice but to stay with her husband, who was then also 20.
“No, I hate him,” the young bride replied in her last-known communication with a third party.
At the time, a pregnant Hayat had told friends she was scared and planning to leave her husband, who she said frequently bashed and strangled her.
Ultimately Zafar either choked or smothered his wife to death, motivated by anger at the prospect of her leaving him, Justice Deborah Sweeney said.
“This was against a background of controlling and violent behaviour by the offender,” the judge added.
Messages contained in court documents reveal Zafar’s abusive behaviour, including Hayat begging to be allowed to leave.
“I just don’t want (to) say this to your face (because) I’m scared you’re going to bash me again,” Hayat wrote in one message.
“I don’t want a son like u. I can’t … have ur child.”
Zafar responded: “Baby you need to let go of the past whatever I did was not me at all.”
In one phone conversation, the murderer also threatened to kill his future father-in-law, Abu Hayat, who took out a restraining order against him.
Hayat made a number of complaints to friends about Zafar’s violence but never reported the abuse to police.
On one occasion, she said he put his hands around her neck to the point she became unconscious because he thought he saw her with another man.
She told friends she was considering going to police about the abuse, that she regretted marrying him and wanted a divorce.
After murdering his wife, Zafar made internet searches including, “can hydrochloric acid burn through skin” and “how many years do you get in Sydney for murder”.
Hayat’s mother Mahafuza Akter broke down wailing during the sentence, with a court worker saying an ambulance might need to be called for the distraught woman.
Akter said neither she nor her husband wanted their daughter to marry Zafar.
“I knew he wasn’t a good man,” she said in a victim impact statement.
“We thought she’d figure it out and come home to us. I know now that she did but it was too late to save her.”
Hayat said he knew Zafar wasn’t going to respect his daughter and spoke of the painful way in which she was taken.
“He burnt the face I used to talk to and kiss every night,” he said.
A triple-zero call by Zafar’s mother led police to Hayat’s body after he confessed the pair had fought and the young woman was not breathing.
He was sentenced to 21 years and six months in jail with a non-parole period of 16 years, making him eligible for release in 2038.
