WASHINGTON: This was one India-Pakistan collaboration that wasn’t needed; it resulted in cold-blooded murder, rather than staunching bloodshed.

In a case that has stunned a placid suburban New Jersey community, a slick young Pakistani-American man allegedly plotted with his Indian girlfriend to kill his Pakistani wife. They pulled off the hit alright , but police was ripped open the case in no time.

Everything about the case stank from the time Kashif Pervaiz , 26, reported to the police about how his wife Naazish Noorani, was gunned down by three armed men as they were strolling with their three-year old son in the suburb of Boonton after a family Iftar dinner last Tuesday. He said the men, one black, one white and one unknown, had called them terrorists before shooting at them. He took bullets in his shoulders and leg, while Naazish , 26, was shot through the heart and died almost instantly . The child was unhurt.

But his story and the sequence of events kept changing all the time, leading police to rule out a race and ethnicity angle in an area that is a multicultural haven and hasn’t had a homicide in 10 years; especially after Naazish’s family updated them about their troubled marriage. In an email to her brother, Naazish had forewarned him about her possible death saying her husband could kill her. ‘I dont no wht to do. Cant talk to him cuz he abuse me than … he doesnt wanna live with me … i dont no kids get scared of him sometimes … im so tired of this … i dont no Im scared … someday u will find me dead because its cuz of kaski … he wants to kill me’ , the email read. Police also found that Kashif had lied to his wife’s family about studying at Harvard and had been two-timing her. He also had a sugar daddy in Manhattan from whom he hoped to inherit millions.

Indeed, Kashif did go to Boston frequently; that’s where he hooked up with Antoinette Stephen, an Indian immigrant from Kerala who lived next door to an apartment he had rented. Naazish visited Boston on weekends and seemed to have been aware of his relationship with Stephen, who Pervaiz called “Soni” . Police say Pervaiz and Stephen plotted Naazish’s murder – and they left a trail of text messages detailing their plans. They kept exchanging messages up to four hours before the murder.