Cops on hunt for killer of wife, daughter

Shooting spree sparked by altercation over marriage proposal

KASUR:

Police launched a hunt for a man who had shot dead his wife, daughter, nephew and another man over a matrimonial dispute.

The funeral prayers for the deceased were offered on Thursday.

The suspect Yaseen's father-in-law Muhammad Iqbal lodged a case against him in Mustafaabad police station.

The complainant told the police that the suspect got enraged during an argument at his home over a marriage proposal for his daughter.

During the altercation, Yaseen pulled out a 30-bore pistol and fired at his wife Mumtaz Bibi and daughter Sonia. Both the woman and her daughter succumbed to bullet injuries on the spot. Each of them suffered three bullet injuries.

The complainant stated that the suspect then ran out of the home while shouting that he would kill his nephew Waqas.

He went to a nearby barber's shop where Waqas was present at the time and opened fire at him. Four bullets hit Waqas, while the shop owner Ilias was also fatally shot while trying to save him. Both men died on the spot.

Another man present in the salon, Asif, was also injured in the firing.

Police personnel rushed to the area under the supervision of Kasur DPO Sohaib Ashraf and cordoned off the crime scenes. A crime scene team collected evidence pertaining to the case.

The police took the bodies to the district hospital for postmortem. The injured Asif was shifted to the hospital.

The police deputed personnel at the exit routes of the district to apprehend the suspect who had fled after the firing. However, he could not be arrested till the evening.

The funeral prayers of the victims were held under strict security.

The father-in-law of the suspect alleged in the FIR that he had tortured his wife and daughter earlier also.

Read Teenage girl shot dead

Sources from the locality said Sonia had been engaged earlier but the engagement had ended. The sources claimed that the deceased wanted to marry her cousin Waqas but her father had opposed the proposal.

In October, seven people, including four children, were killed after their house was set on fire allegedly by the relatives of a woman who had married a member of the family of her own will in Muzaffargarh.

The woman and her four-month-old son were among the victims of the arson attack in the Pir Jahanian area. However, her husband escaped the attack because he was not preset in the house at the time.

Police officials said they had seized a can of petrol used to set the house on fire, shifted the bodies to a hospital for postmortem and registered case on the complaint of the woman’s husband Meboob. The complainant’s father-in-law and brother-in-law were nominated in the murder case. Punjab Chief Minister Usman Bazdar also took notice of the incident vowed to ensure justice.

Mehboob alias Kala, a resident of Pir Jahanian in Muzaffargarh district, had married to Fauzia Bibi, about one and a half years ago in the Mahira area of Rohilanwali. The woman’s father Manzoor Hussain and brothers Nawaz and Sabir were reportedly upset over the marriage.

They allegedly sprayed petrol on the house of Mehboob, set it on fire and fled the scene.

Rescue 1122 staff dowsed the blaze after an hour’s efforts.

According to rescue workers, there were seven people in the house and all of them died after their entire bodies were burnt. The dead included four children and two women. The children who died in the incident were aged four months to 12 years.

The deceased were identified as Mehboob’s wife Fauzia Bibi, 18, and her four-month-old son Ahmed, brother Farooq, 32, sister-in-law Khurshid Mai, 28, and nephews Shah Nawaz, 12, Sarfraz, nine, Yaqub, aged two.

The bodies were taken to the Muzaffargarh District Headquarters Hospital for postmortem. Mehboob said he had remained safe because he was not home at the time.

He told the police that he had been receiving threats and the seven members of his family had been burnt to death in the night by his in-laws.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2021.