Family of four found dead

A woman, her two daughters, father were found with their throats slit.

KARACHI: A woman, her two teenage daughters and her elderly father were found dead inside their house in New Karachi on Sunday in what is believed to be a mass murder by the woman’s husband four days ago.

The neighbours complained of a foul stench arising from the two-room, 40-square-yard house near the Sindhi Hotel, Sector 5-F in New Karachi Industrial Area police limits. When the police investigated, they found the house bathed in the blood of the family that had moved there from Gulshan-e-Iqbal four years go. Thirty-eight-year-old Jamsheda, and her two daughters Hina, 13, Amna, 15 and her 90-year-old father, Rajab Ali had moved to New Karachi after Jamsheda married Jahangir - the prime suspect. “At first we kept washing our own homes thinking that an animal may have crawled in somewhere and died,” said a neighbour. “Then finally, we decided to break into Jahangir’s house that had been locked up for four days.”

They found both the rooms locked with an unbearable smell rising from them. There mother and two girls were found lying in one room while the old man’s body was in the bathroom.

Both Jamsheda and Jahangir had been married before. Jahangir’s first wife lives in Mohajir Camp while Jamsheda’s first husband, Amna and Hina’s father, lives in abroad.

Jamsheda’s relatives say that the couple lived close by and decided to get married but their families were not particularly happy with the union. They believe that Jahangir killed them over a property matter. “The house and money all belonged to my aunt,” said Najma, Jamsheda’s niece. “Jahangir is a greedy man, and has been after Jamsheda’s house and money since the beginning.”

However, residents say that they had never heard any raised voices or seen anything out of place with the family. They last saw Jahangir on Wednesday, he told the neighbours that his father-in-law was unwell and he was going to the hospital. He even went as far as to ask them to keep an eye on his family for him. Jahangir, 41, uses to work in a textile factory in Godhra and did not have many friends in the area. Police have sealed the house and started looking for the accused Jahangir.

The police are looking for Jahangir and SHO Ishtiaq Ghauri said that they will confirm the motive once they find him. The bodies were sent to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. They suspect that the victims had been poisoned and then killed with a sharp knife. MLO Dr Sheraz Khawaja said that there was no evidence of torture, and that samples have been sent to the laboratory to find traces of poison.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 15^th, 2011.