Woman commits suicide after poisoning 5 children

A woman committed suicide and made her five children drink poisoned milk after a fight with her husband.

FAISALABAD: A woman committed suicide by taking poisonous pills after making her five children drink poisoned milk in Chenab Nagar, Chiniot, late Monday night.

The children were taken to the Allied Hospital in Faisalabad where four were declared stable. 14-year-old Riffat, the eldest of the siblings, was in critical condition.

Ishrat Bibi swallowed the pills after she had a brawl with her husband, Abdul Aziz. Aziz told The Express Tribune that she asked him for money to pay the children’s school fee but he did not have enough. He said he went out of the house after the fight and when he returned he saw his wife lying unconscious on the floor while the children were screaming and trembling with pain.

Aziz took them to a nearby hospital in Chiniot but the doctors referred them to the Allied Hospital.

Ishrat passed away by the time Aziz moved them to the Allied Hospital.

Dr Maqsood, an assistant professor of medicine at the Allied Hospital, said that Riffat’s condition was very critical.

“We can’t say anything about her chances of survival with surety,” he said, adding that rest of the children were stable. They included 12-year-old Saadi, 10-year-old Danish, eight-year-old Laib and two-year-old Uroosa.

Dr Maqsood said they would be kept under observation for three to four days to make sure that all traces of poison were removed from their bodies.

He said that the wheat preservative, the poison Ishrat used to commit suicide and gave to her children mixed in the milk, when mixed in a liquid does not remain as lethal.

This, he said, saved the children who were brought to the hospital in time to remove the poison from their bodies.

Danish told the Tribune that he and his siblings did not like drinking milk but on Monday their mother started beating them when they refused. “She forced us to drink it,” he said.

Aziz, the husband, said he was a rickshaw driver by profession.

He said he could not earn more than Rs150 to Rs200 in a day. The amount, he said, was falling short of the increasing household expenditures. Aziz said his wife and he would frequently end up fighting over his income. “I mostly go  home late at night when the children are already asleep so that they don’t ask me for anything,” he said. He added that on Monday night when he came home the children had slept but his wife was still awake.

“She started asking for money as soon as I entered. I told her I didn’t have enough but she would not listen,” he said.

Aziz said that he walked out of the house to avoid the situation and came back after an hour to see her lying unconscious while the children had gotten up and were in severe pain.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2010.