‘Dad was upset because I kept failing exams, so I killed him’

Man confesses to killing whole family over father’s disappointment with his past behaviour.

RAWALPINDI:

A chartered accountancy student who flunked his exams for three years in a row said reprimands from his father led him to murder his parents and brother.

This was said by New Town Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Sabir Nadeem, who has been supervising the investigations in the case of three decomposed bodies recovered from a house in New Katarian in Satellite Town on Sunday.

Waqas Tariq is suspected of bludgeoning his father, mother and younger brother to death with a hammer and then hiding his crime for four days.

“I am CA student and have been failing my exams for the last three years. I could not put up with the taunts of my father for my failure and his objection to my bodybuilding,” the DSP quoted Tariq as saying in his confession.

DSP Sabir Nadeem added that the 26-year-old said he first tried to stab his 55-year-old father in his sleep. But when the older Tariq woke up, he had to switch to a hammer.

When his mother, Tabbasum, 45, woke because of the noise, he used the hammer to kill her as well before killing his younger brother, Saad, in another room, the DSP said.

The boy then gathered the three bodies in a room and sealed it shut. He remained in the house with the bodies for four days before one of his father’s relatives, a factory worker, informed the police of a smell emanating from the house.

Inspector Malik Rafaqat, who is leading the investigation, said the boy claimed he was unhappy with his father’s taunts for wasting his money and continually failing in his exams.

The inspector found it unlikely that Waqas was mentally disturbed, owing to the “calculated” way in which he killed his family and then tried to hide the bodies. However, he added, they were asking the extended family members and Waqas’s friends if he had shown any abnormal behaviour recently.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2012.