LAHORE: A man was allegedly shot dead at his Sabzazar residence and his wife was burnt to death here on Friday.

The victims were identified as Samar Abbas (43) and Kalsoom (40).

Police arrested the suspect who was identified as Jari Abbas, the brother-in-law of Samar.

Samar and Kalsoom were home after dropping their two children at school. A police official said at about 9am, the suspect barged into the residence of Samar, opened indiscriminate fire and killed him on the spot. He later entered a room of his Kalsoom, who had probably tried to lock herself when the suspect chased her after killing her husband.

The police official said that the suspect threw inflammable material and then put the room on fire, locking it from outside. Resultantly, the woman got severe burns. The suspect later tried to burn the entire house and fled.

Some locals rushed to the site on hearing gunshots and witnessing the flames coming out of the house. They alerted the rescuers who controlled the fire, recovered the woman with multiple burns and shifted her to hospital where she breathed her last. Police shifted the bodies of the couple to the morgue for autopsy.

As per the reports, the suspect had surrendered himself to the police and told them that Samar was his brother-in-law and he was running a mobile phone shop on the Hall Road where he was working as his employee.

He further told the police that the deceased was the father of two minor children.

The police official was reluctant to share the details of the motive behind the incident, saying they were still interrogating the suspect.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2025