KARACHI: Docks police on Saturday evening registered a first information report (FIR) against unidentified suspects for brutally killing four persons whose bodies were recovered from a pit in a bushy area near Mai Kolachi Road on Friday night.

The case was registered on behalf of the state by police officer Mohammed Azhar under Sections 34 (common intention) and 302 (murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code

According to the contents of the FIR, the complainant said the bodies of two males and two females were recovered from a dried manhole. Their post-mortem examinations were conducted at Civil Hospital Karachi. Police shared pictures of the victims on different social media groups for identification.

“Circumstances give rise to suspicions that the victims were killed somewhere and later on their bodies were thrown in the dried manhole,” the FIR stated.

Speaking to Dawn earlier today, Karachi Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed said that the bodies bore multiple marks of torture.

She added that victims’ ages were between 10 and 40 years, while the bodies were around four to five days old. The corpses were taken to Civil Hospital, where medico-legal formalities were completed late on Friday night.

Dr Syed said that one victim, a boy between 13 and 14 years of age, had multiple injuries to the head, face and neck. She said that another boy around 10 years of age had injuries to the throat.

The third victim, a girl around 14 to 15 years of age, also had multiple injuries to the head, face and neck. The fourth victim, a woman around 40 years of age, had injuries to the skull, she added.

“All the relevant samples have been collected to test for intoxication and sexual violence,” she said.

On Saturday evening, police said that the four victims were identified as a 35-year-old woman and her three children, aged 13, 12 and 10.

South Deputy Inspector General Syed Asad Raza told Dawn there was no CCTV footage available of the area from where the bodies were discovered.

Raza added that the victims’ injuries appeared to have been caused by an axe or a sharp-edged weapon. However, he said that the exact cause of death would be determined once the autopsy report was finalised.

He surmised that since three of the victims appeared to be children and the fourth a woman in her 40s, they may all belong to the same family.

“So the gruesome killing may be linked with so-called ‘honour killings’,” he expressed.