RAWALPINDI: Police could not find a clue to the mother of a five-year-old girl who was found strangled in a hospital nursery on Wednesday.

The investigators could not get any help from the three CCTV cameras installed in the ward as all of them were not operational at the time.

The body of the girl was found lying with a shawl around her neck outside the lavatory of the nursery at Benazir Bhutto Hospital. Sanam Irshad, the mother of the girl, was staying with her newborn twins in the nursery of the hospital.

The investigating officer (IO) of the case said the hospital security guards were also questioned soon after the girl was found murdered. He said some women staying in the ward told the police that the woman had been in distress due to the critical condition of her twins. She had asked the other women to take the two small blankets from her because her twins would not survive. He said the mother had asked her daughter to accompany her to the washroom when was last seen by the inmates of the ward.

“There are chances that the woman strangled her daughter in distress but unless she is traced it would be too early to say anything more,” the IO added.

Saeed Asghar, the father of the deceased girl, a resident of Dhoke Ahmed Gali in Gujar Khan, told Dawn that when he brought his wife to the hospital to see her twins, she was behaving normally.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2016