Poisoned sweets: Shopkeeper confesses to ‘revenge’ motive

Says he had an argument with his brother and wanted to teach him a lesson

MULTAN:

A sweet shop owner has confessed to fatally poisoning at least 30 people by lacing his goods with pesticide in an attempt to exact revenge on his older brother, police told AFP on Friday.

Khalid Mehmood confessed in a court that he had poisoned the sweets after his elder brother Tariq, who owned the sweet shop with him, “insulted and abused” him in a business dispute.

“I wanted to teach him a lesson,” police investigator Muhammad Afzal quoted him as saying. His statement was confirmed by another senior police official.

“I was so angry that I mixed the pesticides bottle in the sweets being baked at that time,” he told the court.

The poisoned batch of sweets was bought by a local man who gave them to family and friends celebrating the birth of his son. The contamination was first reported on April 21 when 13 members of a family died after consuming the sweets. Sajjad, a resident of Chak 105-TD, had distributed the sweets.

The baby’s father, six of his uncles and an aunt were among the 30 killed. The dead also included five children. Four people are still in hospital.

On Friday, the chief minister suspended the DHQ Hospital medical superintendent and made the Layyah DCO OSD when a report on the deaths were presented to him. Officials had earlier put the toll at 33, but police said on Friday that it stood at 30.

Police told newsmen that 52 people had consumed the sweets.

Both brothers were arrested as well as one of their employees.

Investigators had initially suspected accidental poisoning as a pesticide shop nearby was being renovated and the owner had left his products at the bakery for safe-keeping.

Layyah DCO Rana Gulzar Ahmad had told newsmen last week that the deaths had been caused by the presence of a toxic chemical, chlorfenapyr, which was used as a pesticide. He said tests had found traces of chlorofenapyr in the syrup and the sugar.

He had said the sweetmeats had likely been contaminated by accident.

The brothers are due to appear in court again on Saturday, Afzal said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2016.