SAHIWAL: A man shot his wife, her father and her brother dead for refusing to transfer a piece of land (inherited by his wife) in his name at Sham Kot village in Pakpattan District on Sunday.

Police say the suspect, Zaheer Baloch, managed to escape after committing the triple murder.

Taking notice of the incident, Regional Police Officer (RPO) Mahboob Rasheed ordered District Police Officer (DPO) Tariq Walayat, to arrest the suspect within 48 hours.

The DPO formed a three-member investigation committee headed by Sadar sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) for the suspect’s arrest.

Meanwhile, Chak Bedian police have registered a murder FIR against the suspect.

Police say the suspect, a resident of Jagga Baloch village, had married Amina Bibi of the same clan. After the marriage, Zaheer moved to the house of his father-in-law Gulam Farid, where his brother-in-law Saqib was also living with his family.

Last year, Zaheer started pushing his in-laws to transfer his wife’s share in her father’s land in his name. However, his in-laws opposed the idea.

As Zaheer kept on insisting that the land must be transferred to him, the issue caused bitterness between him and his in-laws.

Locals say that Zaheer would exchange hot words and even scuffle with his in-laws and wife over the issue.

On Sunday, Zaheer repeated his demand for land transfer, upon which hot words were exchanged between him and his in-laws, including his father-in-law and brother–in–law. Following the verbal clash, Zaheer took out his pistol and shot his wife, father-in-law and brother-in-law dead on the spot. The suspect then fled the scene.

On being informed of the incident, Chak Bedian police rushed to the village and after collecting forensic evidence from the crime scene, moved the bodies to the district headquarters hospital for autopsy.

Police sources say that Sadar police SHO Rai Khizer and Chak Bedian SHO Rana Imran, along with police teams, conducted a raid in Mohalla Saeedabad in Pakpattan city, to arrest the suspect, who left the place before the police arrived there.

TORTURED: Two mentally-challenged orphaned youths were injured on Saturday night allegedly because of torture by their uncle and cousin, who wanted to grab their house at Bail Ganj village in Pakpattan district.

As per locals, Anjum Islam (20) and his elder brother Saddam (24), both mentally challenged, were living in the house of their father, who died two years back.

They say that the brothers’ uncle Mazhar Iqbal and his son Faisal Mazhar, wanted to grab their house.

On Saturday night, Mazhar, his son Faisal and their accomplice Hamid Khalil attacked the brothers and subjected them to torture to get the house vacated. Both of them were injured because of the torture, they added.

As the two youths raised hue and cry, locals intervened and rescued them, finding both of them injured.

The locals demanded that police should arrest the attackers who were hurling life threats at the mentally-challenged youths.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2023