A woman and her three daughters who were slaughtered at their home in Malir’s Shamsi Society on Tuesday have been laid to rest. Their funeral prayers were offered in Shah Faisal Colony after the Asr prayers on Wednesday. They were then interred at the Azeempura Graveyard.
A large number of relatives and locals were present on the occasion. The entire neighbourhood seemed to be in mourning as many emotional scenes were witnessed at the funeral. Fawad, the man who murdered his wife and children before trying to kill himself, remains admitted at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre. According to doctors, his condition is now out of danger but he would be unable to speak for a month or two.
No case was registered until the filing of this story. However, police officials have been mulling over including Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act in the FIR when it is lodged. “A case would be registered after the family has taken care of things,” Al-Falah SHO Badar Shakeel told The News. “If the family refuses, the case would be lodged on the state’s behalf. I have asked my seniors to also include terrorism charges in the FIR to make the case stronger.”
Talking about the incident, the officer said Fawad did not go to work on Tuesday but somewhere else to arrange some money. However, he added, the man failed to get the cash, so he returned home at 1:30pm, after which he and his wife got into an argument.
“As soon as his wife went to the bathroom, he slaughtered his eldest daughter who had been trying to study before crying over her parents’ fight, then he killed his wife,” explained the SHO.
“Then he went into another room and murdered his two other daughters. He slit their throats brutally. He also broke the bones in the necks of his minor daughters.” The mutilated bodies of the three girls and their mother were found inside the house, while the man was found critically injured. Police said he had tried to take his own life after killing his family.
Similar incidents have occurred in Karachi, where men have ended their lives after killings their wives and children over different reasons. The Shamsi Society incident is the third such incident to have occurred in the city in 12 years.
Back in 2010, a man who was fed up with poverty had killed his wife and children before committing suicide in Shah Faisal Colony. Unemployment and inflation were said to have been worrying the man. In another incident, the bodies of a couple and their children had been found in a house in the Askari area falling within the jurisdiction of the Cantonment police station.
The letter found with the bodies read that the man was taking the drastic step after suffering at the hands of the times we live in. The man said in the letter that he was very worried about the future of his family if something were to happen to him.
Regarding the Malir incident, police have arrived at the conclusion in the light of Fawad’s initial statement that the man had been depressed due to financial issues. Since the man’s condition is not good and he would be unable to speak for more than a month, police recorded his statement by typing on a mobile phone.
He also told the police that besides working at his job, he had been running a trading business in collaboration with some investors, but he faced some losses and was under immense pressure because of the investors.
“My wife and I usually had fights at home. I was totally fed up with my life,” he typed. He said he had been upset after facing back-to-back financial losses in the trading business. Before slitting his own throat with the knife he had used to kill his family, Fawad had made a video call to a creditor. SHO Shakeel said the man had become extremely worried after the creditor demanded his money back.
Fawad had also phoned his brother Farhan, who lives abroad. After Farhan contacted his younger brother Faraz’s wife, who lives on the ground floor of the same house where the incident occurred, the woman and the brothers’ mother knocked on the door of Fawad’s portion of the house. Since the door was not opened by anyone, the lock of the door had to be broken. After the family entered inside and found the bodies and the injured man, they informed the police about the incident.