File Photo
Ghulam Fatima’s son from her first marriage attacked her new family over 30 years after her first husband had died.
A couple and four of their children were axed to death by the wife’s long-lost son from a previous marriage in an “honor” killing to exact revenge for her taking a second husband, police said Wednesday.
The gruesome murders in Jhang occurred when the woman’s son by her first husband, who died more than 30 years ago, came to visit her for the first time in three decades, together with her former brother-in-law. The couple’s 13-year-old daughter was critically injured in the attack on Tuesday night and is fighting for her life in hospital, while four other children escaped unharmed.
“Ghulam Fatima, who was in her sixties, had married the man of her choice after her husband died and they moved to Punjab from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa after threats from Fatima’s former in-laws,” said Allah Ditta, a local police official.
Allah Ditta added that Fatima’s former in-laws had been searching for her in vain since she fled her old home, finally tracing her to her house in the Athara Hazari neighborhood of Jhang city on Monday.
Her son and brother-in-law were invited to stay as guests but murdered their hosts a day later. “Her son and his uncle came to her house on Monday and stayed there until Tuesday night when they axed Fatima, her husband and four children to death,” Ditta said.
Mian Aslam, a second local police official, confirmed the incident and said Fatima’s son Mohammad remained at large but his uncle Gul Zameen had been arrested.
Fazal Bhutta, a doctor at the government-run District Headquarters Hospital, said the bodies of the couple and four of their children (two women, a girl and a boy) were brought to the morgue late Tuesday.