May 06, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 29, 1429

HYDERABAD, May 5: A man committed self-immolation after burning three young girls to death in a boys school’s hostel in Hala taluka of district Matiari on Monday.

The deceased were identified as Gul Hassan Khaskheli alias Gullo, Rehana, Sofia and Naheed.

There are conflicting versions about the tragedy. As per one of the accounts of the incident, Khaskheli served as a peon in Sarwari college and had friendly relations with the family of these girls. He had asked their father Jumman to marry one of his daughters to him but he had rejected the proposal.

Police said that during recess of the schools of the girls, he took Naheed with him to one of the rooms of hostel. When Naheed’s paternal uncle, Mitho, who used to pick and drop his nieces from schools, reached there, Naheed’s sisters told them that Khaskheli had taken Naheed to his quarter. Mitho reached there and was told by Khaskheli to leave both the sisters and bring Jumman to settle the issue. He left but when he returned he found that all of them had been burnt. Another peon, Shabbir broke open the door of the room.

“Naheed told me in her dying declaration that Khaskheli had tied her and her sisters and sprinkled kerosene oil over them before committing self-immolation”, DPO Muneer Sheikh told Dawn over phone. He said that two other witnesses who had helped break the door shared same details.

He said that Khaskheli also recorded his dying declaration before he was sent to Hyderabad in a critical condition. According to him, he was burnt by Mitho and another person in the room.

Rehana and Sofia had died instantly while Gul Mohammad Khaskheli and Naheed were referred to Liaquat University Hospital (LUH) city branch in critical condition. The MS of civil hospital Hyderabad Dr Manzoor Memon said they both succumbed to their injuries in hospital. He said that they were brought in a state of gasping and had almost 100 per cent burn wounds.

Reports said that Khaskheli had divorced his wife.