Love marriage: Son-in-law, his siblings shot dead

The man had eloped with a woman one-and-a-half-year ago.

MULTAN:

A man, his brother and their sister were shot dead at their home in Muzaffargarh on Wednesday a year and a half ago after a love marriage dispute. Police have yet to arrest the suspects.

Police said Muhammad Zulfiqar, 24, a resident of Rangpur, had had an affair with Rabia Bibi, a woman from the neighbourhood. They said his parents had visited Rabia’s house seeking her proposal for Zulfiqar two years ago, but her parents had turned them down.

They said when Zulfiqar’s mother told Rabia’s parents that she and her son were interested in each other, her father, Abid Hussain, kicked them out of the house.  Police said the woman told them that Hussain threatened to kill her son if he saw him near their house.



Police said Zulfiqar and Rabia eloped a few days after her father rejected his proposal. They said the couple went to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and stayed at a friend’s house, where they later got married.

Police said Rabia’s father disowned her after the incident.

Six months later, police said, Zulfiqar and Rabia returned to the neighbourhood.

Tension between the two families seemed to have started to normalise, police quoted Zulfiqar’s mother as saying.

They said on Wednesday, 13 men from Rabia’s family went to meet her. They said five of them went inside, while the rest waited outside the house.

Zulfiqar’s mother told police that when he came out to greet the men, they opened fire at him, killing him on the spot. His brother, Muhammad Masood, 21, and sister, Tasneem 17, were also hit. She said they did not shoot at Rabia seeing that she was pregnant. She said the men fled. Masood and Tasneem died before they could be taken to a hospital.

Police were informed and an FIR was registered at Rangpur police station against five nominated and eight unidentified men on the complaint of Rabia Bibi and her mother-in-law.



Station House Officer Javed Iqbal told The Express Tribune that three teams had been formed to arrest the suspects. He said the circle of investigation had been expanded outside the district. He said some neighbours told the police that shortly after they heard gunshots, they saw some men rushing out of the house and leaving in different cars.

They said they rushed inside and found the three siblings lying in a pool of blood.

The bodies were handed over to the families after the post-mortem examination.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 12^th, 2013.