Pregnant Arnima, 19, sent a desperate text to her only friend. Forty-five minutes later she was dead. Now her husband’s chilling act after killing her and partially dissolving her body in an acid bath can be revealed

A tradie who murdered his pregnant wife before dissolving her body in acid later laughed about the gruesome murder with a friend.

Meraj Zafar, 22, this week entered a last-minute guilty plea to the murder of his wife Arnima Hayat, 19, on January 29, 2022, in the North Pararamatta unit they shared.

The aspiring doctor had wanted to leave her abusive husband, whom she had married in a secret Islamic ceremony just four months earlier.

Ms Hayat, a medical student at Western Sydney University, had sent a desperate message to a university friend on the night of her death.

“I have no one but you,” Ms. Hayat wrote to her friend.

He replied, “You have no choice. You have to stay with him.’

The aspiring doctor had wanted to leave her abusive husband, whom she had married in a secret Islamic ceremony just four months earlier

In a final message at 9.10pm, Ms Hayat wrote: ‘No, I hate him.’

Within 45 minutes she was murdered by her husband.

The facts of the case, which was heard in the NSW Supreme Court this week, show Zafar killed his young wife “by applying compression to her neck and/or suffocating her”, the newspaper reports. Daily telegram.

The day after the murder, Zafar drove twice to Bunnings in Northmead, where he bought a total of 100 liters of hydrochloric acid.

He searched the internet: ‘Can hydrochloric acid burn through the skin?’ and ‘how many years do you get for murder in Sydney’.

Zafar then poured the acid on Ms Hayat’s body in a bathtub “in an attempt to remove her remains”, the facts show.

The apprentice builder then called his mother and told her that his wife was not breathing.

She advised him to call an ambulance, but he refused, saying: “The police will catch me and put me in jail.”

He then asked how much a plane ticket abroad would cost, but his mother called an ambulance.

This led to police forcing entry into the apartment, where they discovered Ms Hayat’s partially dissolved body in the bathtub, but Zafar had fled the scene.

“Ms. Hayat was lying face down, with her face hidden and twisted in half,” the facts stated.

“There was a strong chemical odor in the air that was overpowering, and police evacuated the apartment due to the dangerous quality of the air coming from the locked private bathroom.”

Police were forced to wear hazmat suits before entering the bathroom (upstairs) of the flat where Ms Hayat’s remains were allegedly immersed in a bath of acid

In the photo: the apartment building where Mrs Hayat was murdered by her husband

While fleeing, Zafar said to a friend, “I just killed someone, I swear to God I killed someone,” and laughed, according to the facts.

On January 31, he turned himself in to the police.

Ms Hayat’s parents told this publication earlier that only one of their daughter’s feet was unaffected by the acid, meaning they were unable to identify her.

It was not the first time that Zafar attacked his wife.

In May 2021, he choked her unconscious after believing she had been seen with another man.

Zafar returns to court for sentencing on August 5.

The day after the murder, Zafar drove twice to Bunnings in Northmead and bought a total of 100 liters of hydrochloric acid.

Mr Zafar is seen in an image released by NSW Police