Gruesome tragedy: Man knifes 11 members of his family to death in Pano Aqil

SUKKUR: In one of the most gruesome tragedies of recent times, a grandfather with his three sons slaughtered 11 members of his own family, including wife, sons, daughters, daughter-in-law and grandchildren, in Pano Aqil's village of Haliajvi on Tuesday night.

The accused, identified as Wahabullah Indhar, stabbed to death 11 members of his family, including wife, three sons and four daughters, besides killing his daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. Five of the victims were children ranging from one to eight years. Besides the 42-year-old wife, the eldest victims were only 18-19 years old, leaving most of the villagers and people of the neighboring villages deeply shocked. All the victims were slain in their sleep and carried marks of multiple stabbing wounds. SSP Sukkur Irfan Sammo, with a team of forensic experts, collected evidence from the crime scene and conducted inquiries into the spine chilling murders.

Following the cold-blooded killings, Wahabullah fled the bloodied house along with his three sons Habibullah, Dur Muhammed and Hizbullah to Adilpur, Ghotki, from where they were rounded up, the Sukkur Police said. All the four have confessed to the massacre. They told the Sukkur Police that they took the action following a lingering dispute with their in laws. No details were available of the nature of the dispute that prompted the four to kill members of their own family. Among these sons, Habibullah also lost his wife, daughter and son.

According to preliminary police analysis, in all likelihood, the victims were drugged before the ghastly incident. However, this needs to be established in the subsequent postmortem, sources said.

The victims included Wahabullah's wife 42-year-old Ruquia, daughters 18-years-old Iqra, 8-years-old Isra, 6-years-old Suriya, 5-year-old Hajani and three sons, including four-year-old Mehmood Asad, three-year-old Mehmood Ahsan and the youngest one-year-old victim who could not be identified. The other victims included 19-year-old daughter-in-law Naseema, 3-year-old Nazia, and one-year-old Ali Sher. All the bodies were shifted to Taluka Hospital for autopsy. Later in the evening, the funeral of the 11 was held in Village Haliajvi Sharif, Pano Aqil, and they were laid to rest in a local graveyard.

According to SSP Sukkur Irfan Sammo, the grandfather, Wahabullah Indhar, has a criminal history. He had killed his own brother some time ago. He has a long history of mental illness too and even remained interned at the Gudu Bundar Psychiatry Institute, Hyderabad. According to police, the first priority is to establish the role of any extreme psychiatric disorder from medical experts. Meanwhile, the four will be produced in the court for their physical remand on Thursday. The role of the three sons of Wahabullah is being investigated as to what motivated them to kill their siblings, nieces, and nephews and if they were active partners of the crimes or accessories to the ghastly killings.

The Sindh Chief Minister, Murad Ali Shah, while expressing his serious concern, ordered the IGP Sindh to submit a detailed report of the incident. The divisional commissioner, Sukkur, was also directed to help out the surviving members of the family.