LAHORE: A woman and her three minor children were found dead in their house in Multan under mysterious circumstances on Tuesday.

Initially, Rescue 1122 and police received calls that a woman hanged herself, along with her three minor children, in a house in a katchi abadi (slum) near Mumtazabad Phattak in Multan.

However, investigators express doubts about the stated cause of the deaths.

A senior police officer, on condition of anonymity, told Dawn that the findings of an initial probe suggest that it is a case of homicide, portrayed as suicide.

He says that the evidence collected from the scene indicates that the victims may have been strangled to death with a rope, before being hanged, to mislead investigators.

“The condition of the bodies and the crime scene do not suggest it is a case of suicide. It seems the children were killed first and then hanged from a ceiling fan, while the scene was rearranged to create an impression of suicide,” the officer says.

The police investigators say that what complicates the situation is the fact that the bodies had already been put down before police and Rescue 1122 teams reached the spot, in a possible attempt to tamper with the evidence.

The officer says that it transpired during the investigation that the woman, Maryam (40), had a quarrel with her husband Murtaza Ali, earlier in the day and she had reportedly informed her parents about it. Before the parents could arrive, she was found dead, along with her three children -- Hassan (6), Hussain (4) and three-year-old Noreen Fatima. Police say that the deceased woman was pregnant.

The police have taken Murtaza and his brother into custody for investigation.

Meanwhile, a Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) team collected evidence, and the crime scene was secured and documented.

The police officer says that the postmortem examinations of the bodies will determine the exact cause and time of the deaths.

Multan City Police Officer (CPO) Sadiq Ali Dogar, talking to the media, said the investigators believe that the woman and her children were killed and later hanged from the ceiling fan.

He said that although the killers apparently attempted to portray the killings as a case of suicide, the police dug out the facts and took two suspects into custody for interrogation.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2026