‘Children were strangled and stuffed into box’

Autopsy report reveals that the siblings were strangled to death but there were no signs of torture on their bodies.

LAHORE: Medical examiners have ruled that two children who were found dead in a wheat-storage silo on their rooftop some two weeks ago did not accidentally suffocate but were murdered.

The police believe that Aleena, 7, was raped and then she and her brother Hannan, 5, were strangled and their bodies stuffed into a 25-inch tall iron box on the roof of their apartment building in Bhutto Colony on October 31.

Shahdara police had initially filed a case of accidental death, thinking that the two children had been playing and accidentally locked themselves in the box in which they suffocated.

On Thursday, after receiving the autopsy report, Shahdara police registered a double murder case against unnamed killers on the complaint of Muhammad Ayyub, the father.

The police also arrested five suspects including the owner of the building and neighbours, said Inspector Rana Shakeel, investigation officer at Shahdara police station.

“We do not believe an outsider could have been involved. It was probably someone who lived in the building,” he said.

Shakeel said that the suspects in custody had so far professed their innocence, but samples of DNA would be taken from them and tested on Friday.

According to the autopsy report, the siblings were strangled to death but there were no signs of torture on their bodies.

He said the killer or killers had crammed the bodies of the children into the silo to mislead the investigation.

“The killer(s) did this in an attempt to misguide the police. They tried to create the impression that the children died accidentally,” he said.

Ayub is a single parent, having divorced his wife several years ago after she was left paralysed by a stroke.

A mason by profession, he was paying Rs2,000 per month to rent the one-room apartment, situated on the first floor of the two-storey building.

The investigation officer said that Ayub would leave early in the morning to go to work and the owner of the building, Sakhawat Ali, looked after the children in his absence.

Ayub used to give Ali Rs20 every day to get food for the kids.

The officer said that on the day of the murder, Ayub gave the children the money directly and told them to get something from the bazaar for breakfast.

He then went to work, returning at 10am to find his children missing. He eventually discovered them in the silo on the roof.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 12^th, 2010.