Egyptian student detained over 'crime of passion' pending investigations

Egypt's Prosecutor general Hamada El-Sawy ordered late Monday the detention of university student Mohamed Adel for four days pending investigations, under the charge of the premeditated murder of a female peer, according to a statement posted at a late hour on Monday on Facebook.

The statement added that Adel was caught on camera stabbing his classmate, Naira Ashraf, to death with a knife, and slitting her throat outside the campus of Mansoura University, located northwest of the Egyptian capital of Cairo, on Monday during daylight. The victim was in her early twenties.

Ashraf's family members told local media that Adel had proposed several times to her but she rejected him and that the killing was 'a crime of passion'.

Several people on the street witnessed the murder, with some bystanders filming the incident with their mobile phones until the perpetrator was caught by other people on the street and handed to the police. 

Meanwhile, the prosecutor general called on social media users not to circulate information or any video footage regarding the murder online and to submit them to the authorities instead.

The New Arab refrains from sharing the video of the murder due to its graphic content.

The gruesome incident sparked uproar across social media platforms with a gruesome video of the incident circulating widely along with the hashtag 'Justice for Naira.'

Prominent women's rights advocate and lawyer Nehad Abol-Komsan released a video on Instagram in which she demanded that women's concerns are handled with the proper consideration.

"As long as we do not take the complaints of young women seriously, and as long as we say that…fighting for women’s rights are 'emboldening girls and causing trouble', this [the murder] will be the outcome," Abol-Komsan said.