KARACHI: A man shot dead his two stepbrothers and wounded two other stepbrothers and their mother over a domestic dispute in the Banaras area of Orangi Town on Saturday, said the Pirabad police.

They added that the suspect, Raja Gul Khan, gunned down Gul Mohammed, 28, and Saeed Ali, 26, and wounded Shoukat, 17, Taj, 18, and their mother Dilshad, 64, inside their home in Pakhtun Market and fled.

Additional police surgeon of the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital Dr Saleem Shaikh said that they received one man, who was dead on arrival, while his brother died during treatment.

The condition of their two other wounded brothers and the mother was stated to be out of danger.

A police officer said that Mateen Khan had two wives and children from both wives, who lived in the same house in a multistorey building. A scuffle broke out between stepbrothers over the water supply rotation as the suspect was insisting to first fill his water tank. The verbal dispute turned bloody when the wife of the suspect brought a gun, the police said.

One of the victims allegedly remarked that the suspect’s wife was allegedly creating “mischief” in the house.

Such remarks allegedly angered the woman, Alia, who went inside her room and brought a pistol. She asked her husband to kill his stepbrothers, the police officer said.

He added that the suspect opened indiscriminate fire on his stepbrothers and even opened fire on a stepbrother who was asleep, and fled after injuring five family members.

The police seized a pistol used in the crime. Alia was taken into custody for allegedly abetting the crime, said the officer.

Pirabad mosque incident

A senior police officer on Saturday told Dawn that the mosque administration was allegedly directly involved in assaulting the female SHO of the Pirabad police station and two policemen on Friday when the police party attempted to prevent people from attending the Juma congregation to implement the lockdown orders issued by the provincial government.

The officer added that the initial probe revealed that the female officer Sharafat Ali knocked at the door of the president of the mosque committee and she informed him not to hold the congregation as there was a ban on it.

In the meantime, the secretary of the mosque committee came out and allegedly attacked the police, resultantly eyeglasses of the officer got broken and she suffered bruises on her nose.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2020