KARACHI, May 30: A 25-year-old woman committed what police described as suicide after killing her two children on the premises of the Masroor Airbase on Wednesday. Police said that Uzma Shad, wife of Mohammad Tahir, a senior technician at the PAF Masroor Base, was found hanging from the ceiling fan in her two-room house, while the bodies of her two children were neatly placed in bed.

A sanitary worker at the base, Rubina Ayaz, who came with the body from the base, told Dawn that she thought she was undergoing some mock exercises – currently under way at the base -- to collect bodies.

The inquiry officer, Mohammad Iftikhar, while talking to Dawn pointed out that the tables where Uzma supposedly stood didn’t fall.

Her two children – eight-year-old Tabeer and four-year-old Bilal – were placed in bed. They were given a bath and wore fresh clothes before Tabeer was strangled by using a small dupatta around her neck, while Bilal was apparently throttled with bare hands, inquiry officer Mohammad Iftikhar and Rubina said.

“We saw a young girl’s shalwar wet with urine, but found her wearing a clean shalwar, suggesting that during the throttling she must have passed the urine. Then her mother changed the clothes and might have given her a bath,” Rubina pointed out.

Her husband Tahir was away at the PAF Korangi base, where he is undergoing a training workshop these days, the inquiry officer said, adding that his presence at the Korangi base has been established.

It was only when Tahir returned home at around 3pm that he found the bodies of his wife and children.

“Both the children didn’t have their breakfast in the morning, while the woman didn’t even have a meal on Tuesday night,” Dr Rohina Hasan, the medico-legal officer who carried out the post-mortem examination told Dawn, suggesting that the woman’s apparent suicide might have been premeditated.

The doctors who performed the post-mortem examination did not find any piece of evidence which could suggest that it was murder.

But it is up to the investigators to fully ascertain the facts of the case. The victim’s husband is being questioned by police.