Blood ties: Man slaughters toddler after argument with wife

Father butchers baby after his wife accused him of spending all their money on alcohol, mother attempts suicide.

TOBA TEK SINGH:

A man slaughtered his one-and-a-half year old daughter on Friday following an argument with his wife.

According to police officials, Chak 332 GB Jahakhra resident Muhammad Amin was quarrelling with his wife over household finances. “They often fought over money as he was a labourer and didn’t earn enough money,” said a neighbour Raheela. According to several neighbours, Amin’s wife Parveen Bibi had left him a few weeks ago and taken her daughter with her to her parents house. “They had fought and he had beaten her severely. She left but then he went to convince her to return home,” she said. “After he pleaded with me and promised me that he would drink less so we would have more to live on I agreed to return with him,” Parveen told police.

She said that on Thursday, Amin returned home drunk in the evening and they quarrelled because he had spent most of their monthly savings on liquor. “We were fighting and I accused him of not caring about the fact that he had a child to take care of. He went mad and began breaking things and he hit me and I lost consciousness,” she told police officials. Parveen Bibi said that by the time she recovered from her fall she rushed upstairs to find that her husband had slaughtered their baby.

Neighbours told police officials that they arrived at the house when they heard Parveen’s screams. “We found her crying by the body of the baby and the child had been butchered. There weren’t even enough remains for the police to send for testing,” Parveen’s neighbour Altaf told police officials and reporters. “Parveen nearly went mad and we tried searching for Amin but he has fled the area,” he said.

Chutiyala police reached the scene after they received a call from Altaf. “We were told about what happened but even we were surprised when we saw all the blood. He had slaughtered his own daughter and we could hardly even identify the remains,” said inspector Haroon. “We sent samples to the DHQ hospital for an autopsy but so far the results have been inconclusive,” he said. Police officials have registered a case against Amin and are searching for his whereabouts.

Parveen Bibi’s family told police that their daughter had tried to commit suicide on Friday morning by slitting her wrists but she was taken to the hospital and was in recovery. “We were with her most of the night but she went to the washroom in the evening and when she didn’t return for an hour we followed her in to find she had tried to kill herself,” said Raheela.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 12^th, 2011.