Man guns down 7-day-old daughter

Suspect could not accept his wife giving birth to a girl

MIANWALI:

A man pumped four bullets into the body of his seven-day-old daughter in Nurpur Mohalla of Mianwali.

The accused, Shahzeb Khan, had been married two years ago and Allah had blessed him with a baby girl, Jannat, born seven days ago.

The baby’s maternal grandfather, Nasrullah Khan, told the police that his son-in-law had killed his daughter because he could not accept his wife giving birth to a girl -- and not a boy.

Shahzeb Khan is said to have had his basic education from a 'good' school, but he was more in sync with the “mores” of a “society” that considered it “a great humiliation” to have a baby girl or to be “the father of a girl”.

Nasrullah Khan, the maternal grandfather of Jannat, said that he himself had become the plaintiff in the case, and “we will never forgive our son-in-law at any cost. We will punish him severely”.

After the postmortem at Mianwali Hospital and legal proceedings, the body of the baby was taken by her maternal grandparents to Iskanderabad where her funeral prayers were offered.

Mianwali Ismailur Rehman Kharak, reached the District Headquarters Hospital where other senior police officers were also present.

On the occasion, Kharak said that Mianwali police had zero tolerance for people who had been involved in crimes of such a heinous nature. The accused would be arrested soon, and law would take its course, he said.

There took place a couple of merciless incidents of infanticide in June last year as well.

A man, then, had allegedly killed his newborn niece in Tandlianwala considering her a harbinger of bad luck for the future.

Punjab Police had said the suspect had confessed to his crime during interrogation, confirming that he thought girls were a bad omen for the family and bring misfortune.

According to police, 15-day-old Dua Fatima had gone missing from a cradle in her house in Mohallah Mubarakpura.

Her parents had searched the neighbourhood in hope of finding the newborn but failed.

In desperation, they had reported the incident to the police.

In the meantime, some people had spotted the body of the baby lying in a sewerage channel near the house of the complainant and informed the cops.

The police took the body into their possession and had it shifted to the mortuary for postmortem examination.

On suspicion, the cops detained Asghar, the uncle of the newborn baby, into custody, who then confessed to his merciless murder.

The suspect had allegedly told the police that he committed the crime to stop his family from acquiring bad luck.

On January 26 last year, dead body of a newborn girl had been found in the courtyard of a hospital in Dijkot.

Police had arrested three suspects, including a doctor and his son, after it was revealed that the baby had been strangled.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2022.