A man from Lodhran has allegedly killed his pregnant wife and one-and-a-half-year-old daughter during a domestic dispute.
The unfortunate double murder took place in Massa Kotha, Kahror Pakka Tehsil of Lodhran.
The police said that the accused, Mohammad Irfan had an argument with his pregnant wife Ruqiya Bibi during which she allegedly slapped him on the face after which he strangled her. He then killed his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter Amina by placing a pillow over her mouth, reports Geo.
The victim Ruqiya was married to Irfan for four years. She was four months pregnant with their second child at the time of her demise.
The bodies were transported to Tehsil Headquarters Hospital for post-mortem examination. Meanwhile, Irfan was apprehended on-site, while police initiated a thorough investigation into the matter. The cloth used in the murder, pillow, and other evidences were recovered from the crime scene as well.
Muhammad Irfan used to work as a mason in the nearby neighborhood, where he would plaster walls with cement. Around 10 days ago, he expelled his wife from the house after beating and assaulting her. Subsequently, the mother and daughter went to stay with the woman’s father in the neighbourhood of Busti Aaroo Wala, as per The Express Tribune.
Following social pressure, the suspect brought them back home, according to the preliminary investigation.
Upon the request of the victim’s father-in-law, Muhammad Islam, police station Saddar has initiated action against the accused.
The police has vowed that legal proceedings will be pursued rigorously to ensure justice for the victims, Ruqiya Bibi and Amina.
Life imprisonment and 14- years jail time were handed down to a prisoner in a case pertaining to sexually assaulting a minor girl by a special court for gender-based violence in Lahore.
On the complaint of the minor’s father, Sanda police had registered the FIR in 2021 against Imran, the brother-in-law of the complainant’s elder daughter who took his 5-year-old daughter to a shrine and sexually assaulted her there.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Kaneez Fatima Bhatti, the presiding judge of the special court, handed down rigorous life imprisonment to the accused for rape under section 376 (iii) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), besides Rs50,000 fine.
Section 376 (iii) of the PPC states, “Whoever commits rape of a minor or a person with mental or physical disability shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life and fine.”
The judge also awarded a 14-year jail term for another offense of sexual abuse (in the same case) under section 377-B of the PPC and imposed a fine of Rs1 million.
Section 377-B of the PPC states, “Whoever commits the offence of sexual abuse shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years and liable to fine which shall not be less than five hundred thousand rupees or with both.”
Imran, who was on bail, was present in the court when the judge announced the guilty verdict. The judge got him arrested and ordered the police to shift him to Kot Lakhpat jail.
In a significant legal development, Additional Sessions Judge-II Mohammad Jameel has handed down death sentences to two seminary students and life imprisonment to another for their involvement in the brutal murder of a young teacher over false blasphemy accusations.
Public prosecutors Tanseer Ali and Haji Shakeel Advocate appeared on behalf of the prosecution, while Asad Aziz Advocate represented the accused.
The judge imposed a fine of Rs2 million each on the convicts. He imposed Rs1 million fine on the girl given a life term for being a juvenile.
According to a police report, on March 29, 2022, three female students of Jamia Islamia Falah Al-Banat located in Anjumabad area on the Dera-Multan Road within the limits of the cantonment police station had slaughtered a young female teacher of their madressah for allegedly committing blasphemy.
The initial investigation revealed that the accused students assaulted Safoora Bibi with a stick at the seminary gate before fatally slitting her throat. Their motivation stemmed from a purported dream shared by one of the students, suggesting that the teacher had committed blasphemy and that her killer would be rewarded in paradise.
Both the perpetrators and the victim hailed from the Mehsud tribe of South Waziristan and were residing in the Anjumabad area.
Following the gruesome incident, Zahid, an uncle of the slain teacher, was informed by the seminary administration about her murder. Upon reaching the scene, he discovered his niece’s tortured and lifeless body abandoned in the street.
Subsequently, the police apprehended the three students and recovered knives and sticks from their possession.
Larkana police intervened to prevent a 13-year-old girl from being forced into marriage, shedding light on the persistent issue of child marriage in the region.
Larkana district police chief, SSP Syed Abdul Rahim Shirazi, took decisive action upon receiving a report regarding the marriage of Aliya, the 13-year-old daughter of Khalid Hussain.
Authorized by SSP Shirazi, a team comprising DSP Headquarters Sarfraz Ahmed, SHO Abdul Malik Bhutto, and SHO Women Police Station, raided Khalid Hussain’s residence to halt the unlawful ceremony, which violated the Sindh Child Marriage Act.
Police checked the B-Form of Aliya Khalid Hussain confirming her official age. The parents of the teenage girl told the police that they were giving away their child in marriage due to poor financial conditions. On this, the SSP Larkana gave financial support of Rs50,000 to the girl’s parents.
The Sindh Child Marriage Act enacted in 2013 prohibits the marriage of any child under the age of eighteen years and provides penalties for a male contracting party, the person who solemnizes the marriage as well as the parent or guardian concerned.
Despite the legal framework in place, the implementation of laws against child marriage remains a significant challenge in Sindh. Child rights expert Sarah Zaman emphasized the existence of operational gaps and challenges in enforcing the law. However, she reaffirmed the legitimacy and importance of the act in combating the practice of child marriage.
Zaman highlighted that while poverty is often cited as a reason for child marriages, other socio-political issues contribute to the prevalence of this harmful practice. Moreover, amidst challenges such as the recent flood disaster, Pakistan faces additional social issues, including trafficking, rape, and child marriages.
In March 2023, the Federal Shariat Court in Islamabad upheld the validity of the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013, dismissing a petition claiming it was un-Islamic. The act, which sets the minimum age of marriage at 18 for both girls and boys in the province, was deemed consistent with Islamic principles by the court.
An interim challan (investigation report) has been filed against the teenage driver Afnan Shafqat and four others in the case of road accident in DHA Phase 7, Lahore, last November that had claimed lives of six members of a family.
Underage driver Afnan Shafqat, his father Shafqat Ali and friends, Ali Abdullah, Muhammad Saad and Muhammad Ibrahim, have been declared guilty of multiple offences in the challan.
The police investigation has laid out that the teenage suspect and his friends first harassed women passengers in the vehicle before hitting their car.
Afnan’s father, Shafqat, a property dealer, had been accused of illegally letting his underage son drive the car.
The report also stated that a request had been sent to the concerned authorities to conduct an ossification test for determining the age of the main suspect but a positive response was still awaited. It said the age of the suspect, as per the birth certificate, was 17 years and 27 days on the day of the accident.
Judge Naveed Iqbal directed the police to produce the suspect on March 11.
The judge also summoned other suspects through notices.
A young man named Jehanzeb Malik, 34, was found shot dead in his apartment in DHA on Monday evening with his wife missing from the premises. It now appears that she fled after allegedly murdering her husband, reports Dawn.
Jehanzeb’s body was found at the 20th-storey flat in a DHA high-rise apartment complex. He had reportedly been shot in the head from behind. The body was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre to fulfil medico-legal formalities, as per the police.
The Crime Scene Unit of the police has collected evidence from the crime scene.
The DIG briefed the media that the murdered victim lived in the apartment with his South African wife. The couple had tied the knot around five years ago. They had two children who were at their grandfather’s home at the time of the incident.
He said that investigators came to know that the couple had a fight before the murder. The police have alerted airport authorities to stop her from boarding any flight.
Spanish tourists identified as Vicente and Fernanda, having a total of 240 thousand followers on Instagram were attacked by a group of seven men in the Indian state of Jharkhand.
The couple had stopped their motorbikes and set up a tent to pass the night in the state’s Dumka district when the group found them. They repeatedly hit the man and gang-raped the woman.
“They had beaten us and robbed us, although not many things [were taken] because what they wanted was to rape me,” the 28-year-old woman said in an Instagram post while showing her bruised face.
SPANISH TOURIST RAPED BY 7 MEN IN INDIA
“They beat us. They put a knife to my neck and told me they were going to kill me.”
“Something has happened to us that we would not wish on anyone. Seven men have raped me. They have beaten us and robbed us, although not many things,… pic.twitter.com/1Zgcsy7j3x
“They raped me, they took turns while some watched and they stayed like that for about two hours”, Fernanda, who has joint Brazilian-Spanish nationality, said in an interview.
In another post, her male partner said he was hit several times in the head with a helmet and that his “mouth is destroyed”.
A patrol car rescued the duo late on Friday night after the assault and escorted them to a local hospital.
The local police has said that they have identified everyone involved and arrested four men who have confessed to rape.
However, three of them have appeared in court after the gang rape of a Spanish tourist on a motorbike trip with her husband, with police hunting four other suspects, reports said Monday. “We have formed a team to hunt the remaining suspects,” senior local police officer Pitamber Singh Kherwar told AFP.
On Sunday, three accused were seen being escorted into court with sacks on their heads by police officers holding ropes tied around their waists. The three were later remanded in custody.
The Spanish woman and her husband were also in court.
“We have to ensure strict punishment,” Kherwar said, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported Monday.
Kherwar said a special team including forensic officers had been formed to scour the scene of the attack, while another team was hunting more suspects.
“They are constantly raiding places,” Kherwar said in PTI’s report. “We will soon arrest the remaining accused.”
On average, in 2022, nearly 90 rapes were reported in India every day, meaning one woman is raped every 18 minutes according to the National Crime Records Bureau, which recorded 31,516 rape cases that year.
Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh states recorded the highest number of cases.
A photographer in Bihar, India, has been allegedly shot dead by the hosts of a birthday party after his camera battery got drained.
Sushil Sahni was killed at the party of the daughter of the suspect, who was reportedly dissatisfied with the photographer’s service when his camera’s battery ran out.
Sushil had returned to his house to charge his battery but the alleged murderer upon not finding him in the party contacted him and forcefully asked him to come back to the party after charging the battery.
Upon Sushil’s return, a scuffle broke out between the two, and in a fit of rage, the party owner put a pistol in Sushil’s mouth and fired. The suspect then took the victim to the gate of the hospital and fled the spot, reports Indian media.
The suspect has reportedly been involved in the illegal liquor business and the police is making attempts to find him.
A 12-year-old girl working as domestic help was allegedly tortured to death by her employers in Sargodha.
The horrific incident happened in Village 84 South, a suburb of Sargodha, where Ayesha worked as a house helper. She was employed by a landlord named Jawad Bhatti, reported Geo News.
Bhatti and his wife reportedly struck the child with iron rods and sticks. After the child died, the suspects telephoned Ayesha’s family members and informed them that their daughter had an accident because of which she is severely injured.
When the family reached the place, they found out that the girl had been tortured and killed, as per the local police.
Bhatti and his wife ran away to escape arrest.
Providing details about the suspect, the police said that Bhatti is a contractor of the toll plaza.
The police said that a murder case has been registered against the suspect and his wife at the Laksian Police Station on the complaint of the girl’s father. A search is also underway to arrest the suspects.
The child’s body was shifted to a hospital for autopsy.
Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has taken notice and immediately sought a report from the Inspector-General of police.
On February 26, another child worker named Ayesha was killed, reportedly by her employers, in Faisalabad while the parents were being forced to reconcile with the alleged murderers.
