Murder mystery: Woman, two daughters found dead at home

Bodies sent for postmortem; case registered against unknown persons.

RAWALPINDI:

A woman and her two children were found dead in their house in Akram Town in the Civil Line Police Station area on Sunday.

The police said apparently the woman, identified as Samreen, 30, shot and killed her two daughters before committing suicide.

“Nida, 5, and Mehmooda, 9, were found shot dead while Samreen’s body was hanging from a ceiling fan,” SHO Asghar Goraya said.

A rescue official, requesting anonymity, said the blood was fresh and it seemed the killings took place around dawn on Sunday. “The two children were shot in the chest,” said the recue official.

Samreen’s husband Pervez Iqbal claimed he was in his sister’s home on Saturday night.

“When I came back home in the morning, I knocked the door several times but there was no response from inside. After breaking the door, I found my wife and two children dead,” Goraya quoted Iqbal as saying.

He said the police also recovered a 30-bore pistol which had a bullet stuck in its barrel.

“It would suggest that the mother either killed her children and the bullet got stuck in the barrel when she turned the gun on herself, or the second possibility is that the killer killed the children and then hanged Samreen after the pistol stopped working,” the SHO said, adding that the husband will still be interrogated.

He said none of the neighbours claimed to have heard gun shots.

However, quoting Samreen’s mother, the SHO said the Samreen was at her parents’ house on Saturday night and Iqbal brought them back to his house at 11pm.

The bodies were shifted to District Headquarters Hospital for postmortem.

The police sent the pistol for forensic examination and fingerprinting and a case was registered against unidentified persons.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 2^nd, 2014.