Step-mother drowns five-year-old daughter in Jamshoro

HYDERABAD:

A stepmother killed her five-year-old stepdaughter by drowning her in a water tank in their house. She then kept it hidden in an iron strongbox in her home in Kotri town, Jamshoro district, for a day and later buried her body, wrapped in a gunny bag, in a ground near her house.

Two days later, after noticing the stench spreading from the decomposing body, she dug up the corpse and tried to set it on fire. But residents, as well as her family, noticed her suspicious activities and caught her in the act before she was handed over to the police.



"We always noticed her unkind attitude towards Alisha but never thought that she would show such savagery," said Sawan Burfat, the maternal uncle of the deceased child.

The suspect, Sughra Mallah, whom Alisha's father, Rasool Bux Burfat, married after the demise of his first wife, also confessed her crime before the police, Jamshoro SSP Capt (retd) Tariq Wilayat informed a press conference on Wednesday.



"Sughra tried to snatch the child's gold earrings but when Alisha began to cry, she throttled her and put her head in the water tank," he said, quoting the suspect's version. The earrings were worth around Rs5,000.



Rasool Bux, the paralysed father who subsists on the family's financial support, has a son and a daughter from his deceased first wife and as many children from Sughra. "She should be hanged to death," he demanded while talking to the local media.

Kotri DSP Khalid Iqbal Pathan said that the police were called on Tuesday morning by the residents of the locality who handed over the woman to the police. He also said that Sughra has confessed to her crime.

The Kotri police lodged an FIR against her on the complaint of Sawan Burfat.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd,  2015.