GUJRAT: Three people, including two women, of the same family were killed by unidentified assailants in Murala village of Mandi Bahauddin on Friday.

Police suspect they were killed over an honour-related issue.

Four unidentified assailants broke into the house of Muhammad Afzal, 47, at around 1:15am and killed Afzal, his wife Shakeela, 40, and her daughter from previous marriage, Naila, 13, with an axe and fled.

A homicide unit had collected the evidence while the bodies were sent to DHQ Hospital for autopsy.

Mandi Bahauddin District Police Officer Umar Salamat told Dawn that 17 years back, Afzal, a native of Chak 37, Sargodha, had eloped with Shakeela, who was already married and had five children. They later contracted a marriage and started living at the outhouse of a landlord in village Murala. Three of the woman’s children from her first marriage had also been living with them while and two were living with their father in Sargodha.

The DPO said it was apparently an honour killing case as the village notables had told police that Shakeela’s former husband and two of her sons, who were living with their father, had been demanding the custody of 13-year-old Naila who had also been killed in the incident.

Naila’s father and brothers, who were now in their 20s, did not want her to live with her stepfather after she had grown up. However, Shakeela was not ready to surrender Naila’s custody which might have triggered the controversy between the woman and her former husband and sons. Shakeela had three more children from her marriage with Afzal.

The DPO said a case had been registered with Mandi Bahauddin Civil Lines police against four suspects on the report of Afzal’s brother Arshad. Police also detained one of the sons of Shakeela and collected phone call data of the suspects.

The detained boy looked to be a mentally retarded and the police suspect he might be involved in the crime, the officer said.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2017