In the family: Couple, their kids killed over property

Close relatives among six suspects .

FAISALABAD:

A man, his wife and three children were killed on Sunday in Toba Tek Singh allegedly by the man’s brother and his accomplices over a property dispute.

A sister-in-law of the deceased, named a suspect in the FIR, was arrested from her home shortly after the incident.

Police claimed that she had confessed to the crime. Five other suspects are yet to be arrested.

Rajana police said that Javaid Imran and Asad Imran, both residents of Chak 264-JB, had had a dispute over property.

They said initial investigation had revealed that Asad, his wife Shamshad Bibi, his brother-in-law Zulfiqar and three other accomplices went to Javaid’s house on Sunday when he had gone to his field.



There, police said, Javaid’s wife Tahira Bibi and children- Hasan, 8, Mohsin, 6, and Sanobar, 4- were sedated and their throats cut.

Later, police said, the assailants went to the fields and shot Javaid dead while he was watering the land. When he fell to the ground, the assailants cut his throat as well.

Police quoted one of their relatives as saying that Javaid and Asad had had a dispute over an inherited land that both claimed.

He told police that the brothers had had several arguments over this.

He said some family elders had tried to settle their dispute twice, but it had reemerged. Last time they had an argument, he said, some relatives suggested that they move a court and let it give a ruling considering they appeared unwilling to accept the decision of the family elders.

On Saturday night, they quarrelled again. He said when Javaid was shot dead, some neighbours went to his house to inform his wife. When there was no response after several knocks on the door, he said, one of the neighbours went in and found Tahira Bibi and her three children lying in a pool of blood.

Kareem Bakhsh, a neighbour, said the police were informed, but they arrived so late the assailants had fled by then.

The incident was followed by a protest by the residents of the area who criticised the police for being slow. The protesters demanded that the suspects be arrested as soon as possible.

A police team, headed by Station House Officer Malik Zafar, reached at the scene and sent the bodies to the rural health centre for a post-mortem examination.

Zafar also informed the protesters that Asad’s wife had been arrested and that she had confessed to killing the five people together with her husband, brother and three other men she said her husband had brought with him.

The station house officer said that police had recovered an azada from her house, which, she told police, was used for the killings.

She told police that they went inside the house in the afternoon by scaling a wall. The woman and the children were asleep. She said they sedated them using chloroform before they cut their throats. She said they then went after Javaid. She said they had been plotting to kill the family for a few months.

The station house officer said a case had been registered against six suspects, including three unidentified men. He said the police were looking for them.

Correction: There was a spelling error in an earlier version of the story. The correction has been made.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 24^th, 2013.