KARACHI: A man on Sunday lodged an FIR against his estranged wife accusing her of having killed their three children, who died on Saturday reportedly after consuming some poisonous substance in Gulistan-i-Jauhar.

The Sharea Faisal police said the three children — Eshal, 10, Zaidan, 8, and Arshan, 6 — were taken to a private hospital in Gulshan-i-Iqbal on Saturday where doctors pronounced them dead on arrival.

A police officer said they died “due to food poisoning” that apparently caused by some ‘antiseptic spray’ inside a flat in Block-19 of Gulistan-i-Jauhar.

The children’s father, Mohammad Imran, flew into Karachi from Lahore late on Saturday night and the next day he lodged an FIR against his estranged wife, Naureen, under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

He told the media at the Sharea Faisal police station that he did not believe that his children died of taking some poisonous food. He said that his wife was ‘responsible’ for their death. He said he was taking his children’s coffins to Lahore for burial and he did not want to give ‘more sufferings’ to his children by allowing their post-mortem examination.

An Edhi Foundation spokesperson said that the children’s coffins were transported to Lahore by ambulances for burial on Sunday.

In his FIR, Imran stated that he lived in Lahore and worked with a private firm. He had married Naureen in 2010 and they had three children. He said his wife along with the children returned to Karachi with mutual consent to live with her parents.

The complainant said he used to send money for expenditure or other requirements of the children on a monthly basis. Some four days back, he talked to his wife over the phone and she demanded more money. He claimed that she threatened’ that she would “do something that you will remember forever”.

He said that on Saturday at around 3pm Naureen’s brother, Shoaib, informed his [Imran’s] brother, Mohammed Javed, about the death of his children. He said his brother informed him about the tragedy at 6pm on Saturday and he came to Karachi by air at around 9:45pm after talking to his wife. He said he visited Edhi Home at Sohrab Goth at around 12:30am, met his wife and in-laws who informed him that the children had eaten ‘potato-parathas’ on Friday night. They said the children’s fell unconscious and their condition deteriorated by next morning at around 9.30am. The children were taken to a hospital where they were pronounced dead, they said.

The complainant said that since his wife used to quarrel with him and had also threatened him, he believed that she had given some ‘poisonous substance’ to kill them.

The police said they were investigating the matter.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2021