‘I have no regrets of what I’ve done’

Man held for fatally stabbing wife, injuring daughters

KARACHI: Papa why are you killing us; don't kill us, the teenage girls cried to their father as he continued to stab them and their mother with a knife. The police caught the man red-handed and arrested him on the spot.

The tragic incident occurred inside a small rented house in PIB Colony late Sunday night. Neighbours barged into the house after hearing the girls' screams. "While hearing screams, we shouted 'Rafiq bhai open the door' but he did not open it. Finally we entered the house after breaking the door and found the victims in a pool of blood," said Sadiq Ali, the victims' neighbour.



"The girls would also have been killed if we had waited before breaking down the door," he predicted.

The girls' mother - 50-year-old Shamim Begum - was killed while the two sisters - Sajida, 15 and Maryam, 13, - were critically injured. The neighbours rescued the victims and took them to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where doctors declared them 'out of danger'.

The neighbours also caught the father, Rafiq, and started beating him up. A crowd of people intended to set him on fire but the police reached the site and took him into custody. "The crowd was so angered, that they wanted to set him on fire when we reached the site," said PIB SHO Javed Yousufzai. "But finally we managed to take him into custody by dispersing the crowd."

The girls, while narrating their harrowing story, blamed their father for the incident. "Papa first stabbed ammi with a knife and before we could save her, papa started stabbing us with the knife," said Sajida.



Shamim was the mother of four daughters and three sons aged between seven and 27. The family alleged that the accused is a gambler and usually beat his wife and children over monetary disputes. "We had our own house but my father lost it through gambling," said Muhammad Shafiq, the deceased's eldest son. "We are supporting the family. My father did nothing except gamble."

The accused confessed to the crime, accusing his wife and daughters of having 'loose characters'. He cited honour as a motive behind the incident. "I have no regrets about what I have done," said Rafiq, while at the police station. "I should have done it a long time ago but I was not able to. Finally, I've done it now."

The police have registered a case against the accused and initiated further investigations.



Police officials investigating the case said that the case is simple, as they found the knife used in the incident. "We have also witnesses [the daughters] and the accused has also confessed to the crime," said SHO Yousufzai. "The accused is lying; he did all this because he wanted money for gambling and the family refused to give him money," he claimed.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 9^th, 2016.