RAWALPINDI, Feb 13: A mentally-disturbed woman slaughtered her year-old daughter in Dhoke Kala Khan on Sunday night, police and her husband said.

Sajida Khalid, 28, who was undergoing treatment for mental illness, grabbed little Ishal Khalid and took her into the kitchen where she slit her throat with a kitchen knife. Screams of her four-and-a-half-year-old daughter brought neighbours rushing to the horrifying scene.

They found Ishal bleeding but still breathing and rushed her to Benazir Bhutto Hospital. But it was too late and the doctors there pronounced her dead.

The police seized the kitchen knife believed to be the murder weapon and started questioning the depressed woman. In reply, she simply kept on repeating that she had two daughters.

Police said Khalid Hussain, the father of the victim, worked at a private guest house and earned Rs7,000 monthly salary. After returning from duty to his rented house on Sunday, he saw his wife and two daughters and left for a nearby shop to bring milk.

Hardly had he left the house, his wife attacked her little daughter with the kitchen knife.

Mohammad Tariq, who lived at the ground floor of the double-storey house in Qayyumabad, said he saw Romish, the elder daughter of Khalid, rushing out of the house. The girl, he added, was tumbling and screaming: “Mama has slit Ishal's throat.”

The father of the deceased girl told Dawn that as he retuned from the market he found a large number of people gathered inside his house and his little daughter lying in a pool of blood.He said he married Sajida in 2005 and she had been suffering from mental disturbance for the last four years. He said his wife had been under treatment of a physiatrist at a hospital in Islamabad these days. Sajida's parents also said she had been mentally ill.

According to the owner of the house, Khalid often used to get long leave from his workplace for the treatment of his wife.

He said while leaving his house for work, Khalid also used to hide the kitchen knives apparently in fear of any tragedy.

However, on Sunday he might have forgotten to hide the knife that claimed his little daughter's life.