GUJRAT: A young mother and her infants died under mysterious circumstances at the outhouse of a landlord at village Samo Bala in the Wahndo police precincts of Kamoke tehsil in Gujranwala district on Friday.

Reports said 26-year-old Hina Bibi came to her room and found her three-month-old son, Abdul Rehman, dead under mysterious circumstances after which she too fell unconscious and died on the spot.

The condition of Hina’s two-year-old daughter Meerab also deteriorated and she was shifted to the Gujranwala District Headquarters Hospital where the doctors pronounced her dead.

Police said the bodies were shifted to the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital Kamoke where doctors conducted the autopsy and handed over the bodies to the family of the deceased.

The locals said the deceased belonged to a poor family working at the agricultural farm of a landlord in the area and the incident occurred at his outhouse.

Police said the family of the deceased had declined to lodge a complaint by declaring the deaths an accident. However, a spokesman for Gujranwala police said they had registered a report of the incident under Section 174 of Pakistan Penal Code, which deals with ‘not obeying a legal order to attend at a certain place’.

Gujranwala SSP Operations Dr Raza Tanveer Sipra said police had launched an investigation into the incident and the matter would be probed from every aspect.

He said further legal proceedings might be started in light of the autopsy report.

Sources in the hospital said the factor of poison could not be ruled out in the matter but the exact reason of the deaths would be ascertained through the autopsy report.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2024