KARACHI, Sept 27: Police on Tuesday claimed to have found a clue to the triple-murder — of a couple and their son — and arrested four close relatives of the victims.

The three bodies were found dumped in a graveyard in North Nazimabad on September 16. The victims were identified as Siddique Alam, an Income Tax inspector, his wife Firdous and the four-year-old son, Huzaifa. The family lived in Sector 11-E, North Karachi. Medical examination of the bodies revealed that the three had been poisoned.

Those arrested for their alleged involvement in the triple-murder are Firdous’s sisters Nausheen, Saba and Saima, and Saima’s husband Noman Anees.

Town investigation officer Inspector Kunwar Asif said that the information about the bodies lying in the graveyard had been given to Mr Alam’s relatives in an SMS made through his cellphone. “We scrutinized the incoming and outgoing calls made through his cellphone set and found out that two of the calls were made on a particular number after the death of the three persons,” he added.

The police approached the person who was contacted finally through Mr Alam’s cellphone. The man told police that the caller was Noman Anees, according to police.

Police recorded statements of Mr and Mrs Alam’s some relatives and noted contradictions in the statements given by Noman Anees. Accordingly, the police thoroughly interrogated Noman who broke down during the process and said that his wife and her two sisters were involved in poisoning the three persons.

Mr Asif said that the motive behind eliminating the couple and their son appeared to be a dispute between the two sides. He elaborated that Firdous had been pressuring her two unmarried sisters to do something that they did not want to do.