• Officials say man, wife sustained bullet wounds to the head; their daughters and his sister bore no injury marks
• Police find handwritten note citing financial problems
• It appears to be a case of mass suicide, says Malir SSP

KARACHI: In another heart-rending incident in the metropolis, five members of a family were found dead inside their locked one-room home in a housing society near Gulshan-i-Hadeed on Tuesday morning, police said.

Police found a handwritten “suicide note”, which suggested that the family was facing severe financial difficulties.

The incident is reminiscent of last month’s mysterious deaths of a doctor, his wife and their three daughters inside a locked apartment in Ahsanabad.

Bin Qasim SHO Faisal Rafiq told Dawn that the five bodies were found from the one-room portion of a three-storey house in Gulshan-i-Falaknaz.

He said the house was locked from the inside and an iron rod was stuck in the handle.

The deceased were identified as Shahzeb Nawazish, 35, his wife Saba, 28, their two minor daughters, Ayzal, 5, and Arya, 3, and his younger sister Shumaila Nawazish, 22.

Shahzeb and his wife sustained bullet wounds, while the three other victims appeared to have been poisoned as their bodies bore no marks of torture or injury, police said.

The SHO said that the bodies of the couple were found on a sofa, with a pistol found in Saba’s lap.

The bodies of Shumaila, Ayzal and Arya were found lying on the bed, covered with sheets. They had sustained no bullet wounds and appeared to have been poisoned, he added.

The bodies were shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) for medico-legal formalities.

An Edhi Foundation volunteer told Dawn outside the JPMC mortuary that they have received information about the bodies at around 4:40am on Tuesday.

Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed told Dawn that the couple had each sustained a single bullet wound to the head.

She said the cause of death of the remaining three victims had been reserved until receipt of the chemical analysis, serology and DNA reports.

‘Mass suicide?’

Malir SSP Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada said it appeared to be a case of mass suicide.

He said a suicide note was found in the room that indicated that the couple had decided to end their lives together after allegedly poisoning their two daughters and sister.

The SSP said the note cited financial problems faced by the couple and alleged ill-treatment at the hands of their close relatives.

He said investigators would send the letter to handwriting experts to ascertain whether the victim had written it himself.

A police officer familiar with the preliminary findings of the probe told Dawn on condition of anonymity that Shahzeb’s father, Nawazish, was retired from the State Bank of Pakistan and died about four years ago. He owned a 600-square-yard house in Gulshan-i-Hadeed and his son sold it but lost the money over time in the sale and purchase of other properties and moved into a rented house.

The officer said Shahzeb was currently jobless and facing serious financial problems, adding that a maternal uncle had recently provided him with rations, while a female cousin living in DHA had sent him Rs10,000 in cash.

Last month, a middle-aged doctor, his wife and their three minor daughters were found dead at their Ahsanabad apartment in Scheme-33 off Superhighway. The police have termed it a case of “mass suicide” but have so far not received lab reports to ascertain the exact cause of death.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2026