LARKANA, Oct 27: In a society with a deep-rooted tradition of keeping a tight lid over crimes within family and even defending the perpetrators whether they are right or wrong, a man has found courage to demand capital punishment for his son who is accused of axing his newborn child to death over suspicions it was illegitimate.

Rahim Bakhsh Mugheri, the peasant who axed to death his newborn baby boy in Sher Mohammed Mugheri village a day ago, was produced in the court of first judicial magistrate on Monday and remanded in jail custody for 14 days.

Talking to journalists outside the court, Mohammed Ramzan Mugheri, the grandfather of the ill-fated infant, who had lodged an FIR against his own son at Gairilo police station, said that his son deserved capital punishment. He said that a cruel person who could axe to death his innocent son could kill his wife and any member of the family. His son had kept on changing statements only to save his skin, he said.

He said that Jannat, mother of the child, was innocent and all the villagers could say it under oath that she was innocent.

Talking to journalists in the court, Sher Mohammad confessed to killing his newborn son and expressed regret over what he termed ‘mistake’.

Not many years before, murders within a family, particularly those of women and children, were brushed under the carpet in rural areas but the above incident shows that a silent social change is taking place in the rural society where people are increasingly coming out to condemn their close relatives for committing such crimes thanks may be to awareness created by media.