RAWALPINDI: The man who allegedly set his parents on fire, killing his mother and critically injuring his father last week, was escorted to the crime scene where he told police how he set parents ablaze.

The incident occurred in Ashraf Colony, Dhamial, on June 10.

According to the police, before committing the crime, the suspect, Mohammad Wasim, constantly asked his parents why they were not sleeping.

After everyone fell sleep, he entered the room of his parents with a bottle of petrol, said Ahsan Shahzad, 32, the younger brother of the suspect while quoting his father who is admitted to the Holy Family Hospital (HFH) with more than 60pc burn injuries.

The suspect, who is in four-day remand custody and will be produced in court on Tuesday (today), was escorted to the crime scene. He told the police that after sprinkling petrol on his parents, he first set his mother ablaze and fled.

“My wife, who was engulfed in fire, was asking her son what have you done; I was not expecting this from you,” Shabbir Ahmad, the suspect’s father, told his younger son from the hospital bed.

He said when his wife was screaming, he took a bed sheet to extinguish the flames but was engulfed in fire as well as he did not know that he had also been doused in petrol.

The couple was burnt before their younger son Shahzad reached for their rescue from the upper portion of their house.

“It was terrible when I saw my mother and father in flames,” Mr Shahzad told Dawn.

“My brother was loved very much by our parents. They were shocked what he had done with them in return,” he said.

Riffat Bibi, 60, mother of five, sustained 80 to 85pc burn injuries and died at the HFH on Friday morning.

The complainant said his elder brother had a quarrel with his parents a day earlier after which his wife went to her parents’ house.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2022