KARACHI, Aug 14: The corpses of a woman, her elderly father and two young daughters, believed to be murdered some five days ago, were found in a house in New Karachi on Sunday morning.

Prompted by a stench emanating from the house, some youngsters from the neighbourhood climbed over the roof and subsequently informed police about the bodies, said an area resident.

The police later entered the house situated in Street 11, Sector F-5 of Rajput Colony and found Rajab Ali, 81, his daughter Jamsheda Khatoon, 40, and her two daughters Amna, 14, and Hina, 12, dead.

“The bodies had started to decompose as apparently their throats had been slit several days ago,” SP Abdul Salam Shaikh told Dawn.

The SP said Jamsheda’s husband, Jehangir, who owned the one-room house, had been missing.

The police also didn’t find the murder weapon at the crime-scene. They said the killer might have taken it along while fleeing.

An officer who visited the house said it seemed that all the four family members were murdered at least four to five days back as their blood had begun to coagulate.

“The body of Rajab Ali was found in the washroom while the bodies of the woman and her two daughters were found lying in the bedroom,” said New Karachi Industrial Area SHO Ishtiaq Ghouri. It was a one-room house, he added.

The official said it emerged during the course of investigation that Jamsheda had married Jehangir about four years back.

She had earlier married Qasim and had two daughters from him.

While the whereabouts of both men were unknown to the police, the investigators were trying to locate her first husband in order to solve the case.

The police described the victims as ‘Bengalis’.

Meanwhile, the bodies were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities. It was hard to bear the stench at the hospital’s morgue where the bodies were kept.

Speaking to Dawn, Rajab Ali’s grandson, Mohammad Shahid, said Jehangir had reportedly told a neighbour about five days back that he was taking Rajab Ali to a hospital and asked the neighbour not to scale the wall of the house as his wife and girls were alone in the house.

While Shahid was not sure of the motive behind the killings, he suspected that Jehangir was involved in the murder.

Mohammad Shahid, who resides near Lyari, said that he used to visit his grandfather often but due to some family discord he had recently stopped visiting him regularly.

When Shahid’s father, Mohammad Riaz, visited the crime-scene, he collapsed. He was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for treatment.

Apart from his daughter, Rajab Ali had four sons, one of whom had died a few years back, said his grandson.