Man arrested for setting fire to wife

The woman is recovering in hospital with burns to 30 percent of her body.

LAHORE: A woman is recovering in hospital with burns to 30 percent of her body after she was allegedly set on fire by her husband and in-laws in Nawankot on Tuesday.

The police have arrested Muhammad Irfan and are trying to arrest his sister-in-law Saba and mother Parveen Akhtar for the attempted murder of Naheed Fatima, 23, said Inspector Faiz Rasool, the investigator in charge of the case. Irfan denies the charge.

Naheed told the police that she had been attacked for resisting Irfan’s plans to divorce her and wed Saba, the wife of his late brother.

According to the statement she gave police, Naheed and Irfan wed in 2009, have a baby boy and live at a house in Furniture Chowk, Nawankot. She said that she had been getting into quarrels with Saba and Parveen from the start of the marriage, and they had long wanted Irfan to divorce her.

She said Irfan had started an affair with Saba a few months ago after her husband, who was his older brother, died. She alleged that Irfan would beat her when she tried to stop him spending time with Saba.

He told her he would marry Saba, but Naheed said she had refused to allow this.

She said a day before she was burnt, Parveen had threatened to kill her if she continued to resist.  On the night of the attack, Naheed said, they started fighting over the same issue at 2am, and the three accused physically beat her.

She said Irfan then brought out a bottle of petrol, sprinkled it all over her and set her on fire. She said this was premeditated, as all three watched her scream in agony but did nothing to put out the fire.

The neighbours, hearing her cries, rescued her and took her to the hospital.

Inspector Rasool said Naheed had major burns on her legs, hands, arms and abdomen, though her face had not been hurt.  He said Irfan was currently denying being involved in the incident. Police would continue to question him, he said, and expected to be granted his physical remand on Wednesday. He said Saba and Parveen had fled their house.

Muhammad Fazal, Naheed’s father, told The Express Tribune that his daughter had often complained to him about her in-laws.  “I never paid any heed to the complaints,” he said. “Maybe that’s why she stopped telling me about them. But I never imagined that they wanted to kill her.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2010.