Woman pushed off Arthur’s Seat endured repeated abuse from her husband
The mother of the woman who was murdered by her husband in Edinburgh, has come forward to highlight what her daughter went through.
Fawziyah Javed was pushed off Arthur’s Seat by Kashif Anwar in 2021, which lead to her death. She was 17 weeks pregnant with their child at the time.
Javed’s mother, Yasmin, in her first interview with BBC Newsnight after the incident, said she believed that Anwar did not like his wife being independent.
31-year-old Javed was a highly qualified solicitor, and took several recordings of her conversations with Anwar.
Yasmin said, “He didn’t like the fact that Fawzi had her own voice, her own opinions. He didn’t like that.”
Javed, who was from Leeds, married Anwar who worked as an optical assistant on 25 December, 2020.
It has been reported that the marriage quickly turned violent as just three months after their marriage, Anwar knocked Javed uncoscious in a cemetery, the court heard.
The court was also told that around the same time, he forcefully covered her face with a and punched her in the head.
He is also reported to have withdrawn £12,000 from her account when she was sleeping.
Yasmin reveals that she had told her daughter to leave the abusive man, but instead she assured her that she would wait and knew what she was doing.
Yasmin told the BBC, “She had contacted divorce lawyers to get the ball rolling to get a divorce because he always said, ‘I’m never going to divorce you’.
“And she’d also made voice recordings of him where he’s being threatening and abusive towards her. So obviously that was all evidence of how he was treating her.”
In a voice recording, Javed is heard saying: “You’ve ruined my life.”
Anwar then replies: “I’ll tell you one thing. You end this and I will ruin yours.”
In another recording Anwar is heard telling Javed: “Who do you think you are? You’re not a man … so come back tomorrow like you’ve been told.”
She asks: “What’s your problem?”
Anwar replies: “My problem? Don’t challenge me, do not be that British woman.
“Because I’m telling you, it will not work. I promise it will not work. It won’t work with me.”
What is more chilling is that Javed went to the police twice to inform them of Anwar’s behaviour and keep a record. But, she did not want to involve them just yet.
The second police report was made just days before she was murdered in September 2021. A CCTV footage of the couple shows them walking towards the Scottish landmark.
After falling off the 50 ft high cliff, Javed was still alive and told passers-by about what had happened.
In April this year, Anwar was jailed for a minimum of 20 years for murdering his wife, and for causing the death of her unborn child.
Javed’s mother told the BBC that she cannot forget her daughter’s last words: “‘Am I going to die? Is my baby going to die?’”
“The words go round around my head every single day,” she said.
Yasmin added, “Alongside the grief and pain, I can’t get them words out of my mind.”
She also told BBC Newsnight that the family does not feel that they got justice as Anwar, despite being in prison, still exerts his control.
“I still don’t have all of Fawziyah’s possessions back,” she informed. “The possessions that I have got back. I’ve had to fight tooth and nail to get them.
“And his parents are honouring that control, by not giving all her possessions back to us.”
The parents of Kashif Anwar, however, told BBC Newsnight that they had returned all of Javed’s possessions to the police and to her family.
Police Scotland, who carried out the investigation into the murder, said that they did not identify this as a case of honour based abuse, as the main factors were domestic abuse and coercive control.
Javed’s mother believes that her daughter’s death was the result of honour-based control, jealousy, and insecurity.
“He used to say to Fawziyah, we don’t have divorces in our family, we don’t divorce, we stay in marriages no matter what,” she told BBC Newsnight.
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