Man keeps wife, kids hostage

VEHARI:

Police have arrested a man on charges of keeping his wife and three children captive and subjecting them to torture for three months.

The woman and children were rescued in a police operation supervised by DPO Isa Khan Sukhera and transported to a hospital in protective custody.

A police official said the suspect was known in his locality to be a drug addict.

The district police officer said the suspect had been arrested after a 15-hour standoff in Burewala.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, he said the suspect had repeatedly subjected his wife and children to violence at gunpoint, while under the influence of drugs.

He said a loaded pistol had been seized from the arrested suspect.

He disclosed that the torture had resulted the loss of an eye of a daughter of the suspect, while the two other children had also suffered injuries.

An official alleged that the suspect had also forced the captive family members to use the drug Ice.

The police had received an alert at about 8pm on Tuesday that an armed person was assaulting his wife and children in a house in Burewala.

Burewala city police reached the spot and rescued six-year-old Ali, 13-year-old Aiman Fatima, 10-year-old Adan Fatima and an eight-year-old girl.

However, the suspect took his wife hostage at gunpoint in a room.

The officials held negotiations with the man with the help of his close relatives.

However, he remained unyielding and continued hurling threats.

Ultimately, the decision to launch an operation was taken and the area police, Elite Force and SIA teams entered the house with utmost skill.

They safely rescued the captive woman, arrested her husband and seized the loaded pistol and knife from him.

The official said legal action regarding the case had been initiated. The suspect, Ahmed Qazi, works as a milkman.

His wife alleged that he physically abused her and their children under the influence of drugs.

She said Qazi had prevented his children from going to school and kept them confined at home for the past three months.

The woman told investigators that the arrested man had injured the children with a knife, resulting in the loss of one eye for Aiman Fatima. She also accused the suspect of molesting his elder daughter.

Torturing family mmbers particularly wife and children is not uncommon in Punjab.

On May 3, a man, along with his family members, allegedly tortured his wife and her brother and cut their hair to further humiliate them. The incident took place in 208/HR area of Bahawalnagar.

The victim was married to the accused, Salim, two years ago, but the couple did not have any child due to which their marital life had been marred with frequent quarrels.

The victim, fed up with the taunts her in-laws and husband hurled at her, had filed for separation.

The couple’s relatives intervened and made the couple reconcile. However, the reconciliation didn’t last long. The victim’s husband and his family nurtured an added grudge against her over her act of filing for separation.

Salim and his family continued to torture her. On one occasion the victim’s brother came to the rescue of her sister, but he too bore the brunt of his sister’s in-laws ire.

They grabbed him, cut his hair and shaved his mustache and eyebrows.

The accused ultimately kicked the victim out of his house.

Photos of the victim went viral on social media.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 27^th, 2023.