Devastated father of murdered medical student Arnima Hayat learns acid bath killer Meraj Zafar could be out of jail in 13 years

EXCLUSIVE

Abu Hayat was devastated as he walked out of the NSW Supreme Court after watching his daughter’s killer be jailed for what he thought was 22 years. 

‘I am not happy with that sentence – 22 years is not enough,’ he told Daily Mail Australia after catching the train home to western Sydney. ‘I’m not happy.’ 

But Mr Hayat was left briefly speechless when he was told the man who murdered his darling Arnima would likely serve just 16 years – and could be free as soon as 2038.

Arnima was 19 and pregnant when Meraj Zafar choked or smothered her to death in their North Parramatta flat after she tried to leave their violent marriage in January 2022.

A pathologist could not determine precisely how Ms Hayat died because Zafar had placed her body in a bath filled with hydrochloric in an attempt to dissolve her remains.

Bangladeshi-born Mr Hayat could not comprehend someone killing his eldest child, let alone denying him the chance to see her face one last time, and then not having to face the harshest possible penalty.

Zafar was sentenced on Thursday to 21 years and six months in prison but Mr Hayat did not understand until informed by Daily Mail Australia that was only the maximum term he could serve.

Justice Deborah Sweeney set a much shorter non-parole period, which meant after taking into account the time Zafar had already spent behind bars he could be a free man in a little more than 13 years.

‘Seriously?’ Mr Hayat said when told Zafar would be eligible for parole in March 2038.

‘Again, I cry. Sixteen years? Not 22? Sixteen years?’

Mr Hayat understands Australia does not have the death penalty but believes Zafar should be executed for what he did to his daughter, as would happen in his home country.

‘After she died, every day, every night, I miss my daughter,’ Mr Hayat said. ‘My heart is broken but we can’t do anything. 

‘I lose everything. It is very hard for me.’

Arnima had called her father ‘Papa’ and he called her ‘Annie’. 

The pair had been extremely close and enjoyed shopping mall trips together, with Arnima looking for dresses and wanting to order a double cheeseburger or sushi.

‘She always say, “I love you Papa”. She is 19 years old and she say “I love you Papa”,’ he said.

‘She always come to me, “Papa, one day when I become a doctor I earn a lot of money and give you money. I will buy you a house. I will buy a BMW car. You will see”.’

Mr Hayat says he sometimes sees his daughter in the faces of other young women and regularly visits Arnima’s grave at Rockwood Cemetery.

‘Muslims say if someone kill you, you go to Jannah – to heaven,’ he said. ‘My daughter was murdered by her husband, she is in heaven.’

Justice Sweeney found Arnima’s murder was objectively in the ‘mid range of seriousness’.

‘The offender acted with reckless indifference to life in killing Ms Hayat by obstructing her breathing by applying compression to her neck and/or smothering her,’ she said. 

‘He acted in such a way because of his anger at the prospect of Ms Hayat leaving him and ending their marriage. 

‘This was against a background of controlling and violent behaviour by the offender. The offence occurred in the home of Ms Hayat, where she was entitled to feel safe.

‘The offender did not undertake any significant planning or organisation in killing Ms Hayat.

‘I also take into account his conduct in relation to her body after her death. Taking into account those factors I assess the offence as in the mid range of seriousness.’

Mr Hayat had never liked Zafar, who married Arnima on October 13, 2021 in a private Islamic ceremony not attended by members of either of their families.

She was an 18-year-old medical science student at the University of Western Sydney and had never previously had a boyfriend. Zafar was a 20-year-old tradie with a history of illicit drug use and heavy drinking.

Months before the wedding Arnima had already been complaining to friends about Zafar’s violence towards her and Zafar had quarrelled with Mr Hayat about the pending marriage.

On October 8, 2021, Zafar – who refused to allow Arnima’s parents to meet his own family – had telephoned Mr Hayat and said, ‘I will kill you.’ Mr Hayat went to police. 

Over the coming days Arnima collected her belongings from her parents’ home and had no further contact with them before she was murdered.

‘I know this guy very bad,’ Mr Hayat said. ‘But after marriage I don’t even know where they are living.’ 

A month after the wedding, when the couple was in a rented North Parramatta apartment, Arnima told a friend Zafar had bashed her and she regretted marrying him. 

Arnima texted her friend at 8.30pm on January 29, 2022, stating, ‘I have nobody except you.’ Her friend replied: ‘You have got no choice. You have to stay with him.’

At 9.10pm Arnima responded: ‘No, I hate him.’ That was the last contact Arnima had with anyone other than Zafar.

Sometime before Zafar left the flat at 9.55pm, he killed Arnima.

The next day Zafar returned to the apartment and late in the morning drove to a Bunnings store where he purchased a 20 litre tub of hydrochloric acid which he put in a bath with Arnima’s body.

That afternoon he went back to Bunnings and bought four more 20 litre tubs of acid which he poured into the bath to dispose of Arnima’s body and obscure how he had killed her.

Zafar called his mother and said his wife was not breathing but did not want to call an ambulance because ‘the police will put me in jail’. His mother then called Triple-0.

When police arrived and found Arnima’s body lying naked and face-down in the bathtub Zafar had fled the premises. 

At 8.30pm that night Zafar conducted four internet searches with the question: ‘How many years do you get in Sydney for murder.’

Zafar surrendered to police early the next afternoon and told the arresting officer, ‘I don’t want to do 20 years. I was like you know what, I have done a mistake. I have to do it.’

Arnima’s body was unrecognisable due to decomposition and her identity was only confirmed using DNA.

Zafar pleaded guilt to murder and in a letter addressed to the court and Arnima’s family said he took full responsibility for his actions.

‘I don’t know how to begin to say how sorry I am for all that I have caused and all that I have affected through my actions,’ he wrote.

‘It’s the most terrible thing to do to someone else.’

The now 23-year-old said no one should be treated with violence or ‘discarded’ in the way Arnima had been.

‘I hope one day you can forgive me,’ he said. ‘I am very sorry.’

Mr Hayat directly addressed Zafar last month during a pre-sentence hearing.

‘You killed my daughter, you broke her future… you broke my family, you broke my heart,’ he told the killer. ‘We lost our daughter and everything else.’ 

Mr Hayat said he had been unable to see his daughter one last time because the hydrochloric acid had disfigured her features.

‘He burned the face I used to talk to every night – he burned her,’ he said. ‘Can you imagine someone burning your child?

‘He burned her, and I can never see her again.’

Ms Hayat’s mother Mahafuzer Akter also made a statement read by a volunteer from the Homicide Victims Support Group.

‘My tears are never ending and the deep ache in my heart never stops – never stops, never stops,’ she said. 

‘I cry day and night because she was stolen from me.’

‘The dreams we shared for her future were everything a mother could hope for, and losing that dream has left a void that can never be filled.

‘What happens to her dreams now that she has been murdered, the dreams we built together? Moving to Australia was supposed to be the start of our dreams, not the end.’

Ms Akter said her daughter had been murdered by the person supposed to love her and ‘protect her’ and that she would ‘give anything to see her face one last time’.

‘Instead, I sit by her grave every Friday stroking the grass because I can no longer stroke her hair – I kiss and hug her tombstone, longing to hold her and smell her.’  

Once the grieving mother’s statement was complete, Justice Sweeney told her: ‘Ms Akter, I’m sorry for the loss of your beautiful daughter. You have my sympathy.’

While on remand, Zafar served a five-month sentence for intimidating Mr Hayat and Justice Sweeney set the 16-year term to commence wo months after he first entered custody.

Zafar will be eligible for parole on March 30, 2038.