RAHIM YAR KHAN: Police claim to have solved the blind murders’ mystery by arresting a man who confessed to killing his wife and two stepdaughters.

Residents of Janpur in Liaquatpur informed police that they saw a body of a 10-year-old girl on Chandarwali Road on Saturday last. A team of the Janpur check post reached the spot and shifted the body to the Khan Bela Rural Health Centre for postmortem.

DPO Zahid Nawaz Marwat and Liaquatpur DSP Mamoonur Rashid also visited the scene and investigated the murder of the girl who was in school uniform.

The same day the body of a woman was found in fields near a drain of subsoil water at Chak 27 Abbasia. Tabbasum Shaheed police took the body in their custody and made announcements in the mosques of villages nearby but no heir was found.

Two murders created panic among people as both of them had marks on neck. They were temporarily buried.

Meanwhile, the body of a 28-year-old youngster was found in Sadiq branch canal. Mazhar Nadeem, who was a resident of Chak 42-D of Deepalpur, was shot dead and police arrested his wife, brother-in-law and two other relatives in Jinnah Park.

On Jan 18 (Monday), the body of an eight-year-old girl was found near a watercourse in Chak 10 Abbasia.

The DPO formed three investigation teams and police arrested Iqbal Zargar, a jeweller, in Sadiqabad. He confessed to killing his wife and two daughters.

The DPO told a press conference that Iqbal killed his wife Shumaila and stepdaughters Abeera, 9, and Sonia, 6. He said Iqbal contracted love marriage with his second wife Shumaila who got divorce from her first husband Niaz. Iqbal settled Shumaila and her two daughters in a separate house in Sadiqabad.

The DPO quoted Iqbal as saying Shumaila would mentally torture him and he was fed up with her behaviour and decided to get rid of her and the two children. Iqbal took Shumaila and children for shopping on Saturday night and drugged them before strangulating them, said the DPO who added that the perpetrator threw the bodies in different areas and fled.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2016