Man kills mother, four others

Age of victims range from four-year-old to 70-year-old

TOBA TEK SINGH:

A man, along with unidentified suspects, gunned down his mother, sister, niece and two brothers-in-law in a tragic incident in Mohalla Heera Colony, police said.

The victims were identified as Abdul Qadeer, 65, his wife, Farhat Nasreen, 45, his daughter, Nain Tara, 4, and his mother-in-law, Naseem Bibi, 70.

Upon receiving information about the incident, District Police Officer Ibadat Nisar, SDPO Saddar Circle Muhammad Fahim, and SHO Police Station City Rana Afzal arrived at the crime scene for inspection. All the four victims had sustained gunshot wounds to their heads, faces and chests.

The mobile forensics team and CDU team collected evidence from the crime scene. The bodies were then transferred to the DHQ Hospital Toba Tek Singh for postmortem examination.

Abdul Qadeer was a retired railway employee, and Farhat Nasreen had been his second wife.

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Abdul Qadeer had been living in a rented house in Hira Colony, while his permanent residence was 762-GB Tehsil Kamalia of District Toba Tek Singh.

Police said that the suspect, Imran, allegedly went to the residence of his second brother-in-law, Abdul Khaliq, in Neelam Jabbar Town, where he killed Khaliq and injured his nephew, Osama.

Osama was taken to the District Headquarters Hospital. DPO Ibadat Nisar had formed a team led by the SDPO of Saddar Circle, Muhammad Faheem, to arrest the suspect. The motive behind the murders was said to be a property dispute. In a news item published on these pages in February 2022, it had been reported that the number of fratricidal killings had increased in Mianwali district over the past few years.

This is a trend that worries and overwhelms everyone. It is different from the nature of crime incidents that took place in the past.

Over 10 years ago most of the people killed in the Mianwali district were the result of tribalism and communalism. Inter-tribal and inter-communal enmities lasted for decades in which rival groups killed each other from time to time. However, the situation has changed drastically in Mianwali.

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For the last few years, incidents of fratricidal killings have increased manifold. Fifty-one such incidents took place in the district in a year alone.

It seems that patience and endurance even within families have become a matter of the past.

At least 49 people have been killed over enmity, and 54 people committed suicide. In February 2022, a man had killed his brother over a minor altercation, and then he shot himself as well.

In Jhabri area of the district, another man killed his younger brother and then he also shot himself. Mohammad Fayyaz and his brother Mohammad Riaz quarreled over a minor matter at home upon which Fayyaz shot his younger brother dead. Later, Fayyaz also shot himself.

Fayyaz had been working in Bahrain and was visiting Mianwali on leave.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th, 2023.