KARACHI: Police on Sunday claimed to have arrested a man for his alleged involvement in killing a woman and her three children.

Partially decomposed bodies of Anila, 35, her two sons, Husain Ali, 12, and Konain Ali, 10, and daughter Kishwara Zehra, 13, were found in a pit off Karachi’s Mai Kolachi Road on Friday night.

A statement by the office of Sindh Home Minister Ziaul Hasan Lanjar identified the prime suspect as Masroor Hussain Bangash, who was arrested by the Keamari police.

South DIG Asad Raza told Dawn that digital forensics of the mobile phone of deceased Anila had established that the held suspect had been in contact with her.

He said that the suspect and the deceased woman had been friends for a long time. “He wanted to get rid of her,” the DIG said.

Police also shared a video of the suspect, in which he said she had been using black magic and would often make demands, due to which he was under mental pressure.

“She would take me to people who practice black magic,” he alleged, adding that she had taken him to one such individual on Tuesday night as well.

He said he had decided by then that “either I will kill myself or her”, adding that he killed her and then dumped the body in a pit.

The suspect added that he then went to her mother’s house, took her children — who too would often make demands and “pressurise” him — killed them and dumped their bodies in the same pit.

He said he killed them because they had seen him leaving the house with their mother.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2026