MANSEHRA: A mother of three was burnt to death in Chitta Batta area of Mansehra on Monday. Claiming the arrest of two suspects, the police suspected the incident took place over enmity.

“We’ve arrested two brothers, who confessed to torching the woman,” district police officer Ahsan Saifullah told reporters here. The DPO said the woman’s husband, Mohammad Fayyaz, faced the charge of killing the arrested men’s brother and had been behind bars for six months.

The woman’s father, Mohammad Sadiq, said his 26-year-old daughter, a mother of three, had moved to his place after her husband was arrested in a murder case.

He said his daughter was torched by two unidentified assailants, who later fled.

“My daughter was asleep in a separate room and therefore, we didn’t get the wind of the incident. The perpetrators gagged her, fastened her to the bed and doused her with kerosene oil before setting fire to her,” he told reporters at the King Abdullah Teaching Hospital, where the body was taken for postmortem.

The man said his son-in-law had been behind bars for six months in a murder case.

Saddar police station SHO Tariq Khan said the body was handed over to the family for burial after it underwent postmortem.

He said the incident seemed to have an ‘act of revenge’.

Meanwhile, Sadiq Khan told reporters that ‘few’ people had blackmailed her daughter-in-law over a personal video for months and that they had issued her death threats.

He also said the ‘blackmailers’ also injured her daughter-in-law in an attack.

The man however refused to name suspects fearing attacks against family members.

Published in Dawn January 31st, 2017