KARACHI, Dec 16: A man, his pregnant wife and mother-in-law died after consuming homemade herbal medicine in Landhi, late on Friday night.

According to initial police investigations, Ghulam Sarwar, 55, purchased raw herbal medicine from Keamari, got it grounded, and took it home to Arafat Town, Quaidabad. In the evening, he consumed a dose of the medicine, which was supposed to treat backache. He offered some of the medicine to his wife, Parveen, 45, and his mother-in-law Sharqa, 80, who also took a dose. He asked his eldest son who is 10, to take a dose but he declined.

In the night around 11:30pm, Sarwar had fits and was taken to a nearby clinic where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

The SHO Shah Latif police station, Mohammad Ashraf Khan, said the police were informed when Parveen was also taken to a private hospital in Quaidabad, where she expired. We reached the spot and asked Sarwar’s younger brother to allow post-mortems of the deceased but they declined, the SHO said.

When the police learnt that Sharqa had also consumed a dose, they told the family to take her to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre immediately. She began having fits while being taken to hospital and died during treatment. Her body was also taken away by her relatives without autopsy.

Ghulam Sarwar and Parveen had seven children, four sons and three daughters. Parveen was expecting and the delivery was due in a few weeks. Sarwar was a government employee and retired recently availing a golden handshake .