Booze money: Man stabs wife 13 times for not handing over salary

Munazza left husband because he was a drug addict and alcoholic. He still demanded she pay him to ‘stay away’.

BAHAWALPUR:

A government school teacher was severely injured when her husband attacked her with an axe on the school premises on Tuesday.

According to eyewitnesses at the school, Hamza Town Shadab Colony resident Munazza Nasir was attacked by her husband Siddique. “She was teaching at the Government Girls Primary School and lived near the school. We heard her screaming as her husband stabbed her and the children began screaming and rushed outside their classes,” said the school guard Muhammad Afghan.

Munazza, 28, was living near the school with her one-year-old son. Her husband was seldom at home and was an alcoholic. “Her husband was a drunk and a drug addict. He often beat her but he was seldom home,” Afghan told reporters.

On Tuesday, Siddique nearly killed his wife because she refused to hand over her salary to him. “She usually gave him most of her money because he beat her if she refused but this time she said she needed to keep the money for her child,” Munazza’s colleague Ilmas Bibi told police.

Eyewitnesses at the school told police that Siddique broke the door of her room and attacked her with an axe. “He began hacking away at her and when we heard her screams and finally reached her she was nearly dead,” Afghan said,

“She hadn’t given him any money for nearly two months and he was a drug addict so he became violent,” Munazza’s brother Tayyab told police. “My sister used to pay him to stay away from her. He was abusive and the only way he would leave her alone was if she gave him money for drugs and booze,” he added. “When he got to her she and my nephew were asleep. He attacked her and by the time everyone else heard her screams and the child crying it was too late. She is in the hospital,” he said. “Munazza’s house is a few feet away from the school but close enough for us to hear her,” Afghan said.

Neighbours and school officials said that they found Munazza lying on the floor of her room in a pool of blood. “The baby was crying and she was barely breathing. Siddique had escaped,” Tayyab said. Doctors at the Bahawalpur DHQ Hospital said that Munazza had been stabbed 13 times and was in critical condition.

“We are doing everything we can but she has lost a lot of blood,” Dr Bahadur said.

Qari Nazir Ahmed, Munazza’s father, told The Express Tribune that Siddique had already been married twice. “My daughter found out that she was his third wife months after the marriage and then she moved out and began living near the school with her son but he still kept turning up for money,” he said.

Qari Nazir Ahmed alleged that the doctors at the DHQ hospital had forcefully discharged Munazza even though she was in critical condition. “They told us to take her home and the police is not cooperating with us in arresting Siddique,” he said.

“We have discharged her because there is nothing more we can do,” Dr Bahadur said.

Meanwhile, Station House Officer (SHO) Rana Riaz said that police had registered an FIR against Siddique. “We are doing our best to make sure he is caught and brought to justice,” he said. 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2011.