A federal grand jury is investigating a double-murder in Pakistan that authorities say may have been ordered by a New York City cab driver angry after his daughter escaped her arranged marriage, The Post has learned.
Mohammad Ajmal Choudhry, 60, was arrested last month in Brooklyn and charged with visa fraud.
But US federal agents now are scrutinizing claims that he arranged the recent execution-style murder of two people in Pakistan’s Punjab province after his daughter refused to return to the marriage, officials disclosed yesterday.
“United States law enforcement agents are actively investigating the murders,” says a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement report about the federal grand jury probe.
Authorities say the cab driver’s daughter, Amina Ajmal, escaped the coerced union in Pakistan with the help of a cousin and US diplomatic personnel and then returned to New York City, where she had grown up and was educated.
But when the daughter refused to return to the arranged union in Pakistan, her father – who lives in Brooklyn – vowed to kill the cousin and her relatives, officials said.
Late last month, two relatives of the cousin who helped Ajmal escape the forced marriage were gunned down and murdered in Pakistan, while a third was badly injured in the shooting, officials said.
An eyewitness who filed a report with police in Pakistan told authorities there that “Choudhry’s brother, Muhammad Akmal, was one of the shooters involved,” Brooklyn federal prosecutors recently told a judge, citing investigative reports received from law enforcement officials in Pakistan.
“In addition, the eyewitness alleged in the report that the murders were committed at the behest of defendant Choudhry” and another relative, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent wrote in an affidavit about the probe.
Even though the killings took place in Pakistan, American authorities could prosecute those involved if the murders were plotted by people inside the US.
Choudhry – a legal US resident and citizen of Pakistan who is a New York City cab driver – pleaded not guilty earlier this week after he was indicted on the earlier visa fraud charges.
At this point he has not been charged with the killings.
Choudhry’s defense attorney has vowed to fight the visa fraud case, but said he had not been informed of the Brooklyn federal grand jury probe into the murders.
Yesterday, a federal magistrate judge signed a material witness warrant for Choudhry’s other brother – who also lives in Brooklyn – barring him from leaving the US, after the feds alleged that he, too, may have knowledge about the murder plot.
After Choudhry’s arrest on the visa charges in February, Brooklyn federal prosecutors said that more than three years ago the cab driver had forced Ajmal, a US citizen in her early 20s, to travel back to Pakistan to marry Abrar Ahmed Babar.
He ordered one of his brothers to hold Ajmal captive in Pakistan until the wedding took place there in November, sources said.
But several weeks after the ceremony took place, Ajmal escaped back to the United States with the help of her cousin and the US Embassy personnel.
When she arrived back in New York, Ajmal agreed to help federal agents investigate her father actions and then recorded several telephone conversations with him, officials said.
In two taped conversations, on Feb. 20 and 21, Choudhry allegedly threatened Ajmal’s cousin and her relatives – all of whom live in Pakistan, officials said.
A few days later, the two relatives were killed.
mmaddux@nypost.com