KARACHI, Aug 7: A one-year-old girl was found dead and her 30-year-old mother in highly precarious condition at a shelter home where the victim woman had taken refuge after having become estranged from her husband.

Brigade police quoted the shelter home administration as telling them that Farzana, wife of Jawad Baloch, consumed phenyl in an attempt to commit suicide after strangling her 13-month-old daughter, Minahil.

The victim’s husband, however, alleged that the shelter home administration was behind the incident. The shelter home administration was not available for comment.

The father of the only daughter told Dawn that he had gone to the shelter home to visit his wife, but the manager did not let him meet her and asked him to come at nine o’clock the next morning.

“I reached the shelter home at 9am, but was not allowed to meet my wife and daughter till 1pm, when they told me that my wife had tried to kill herself after she strangled our daughter,” said the father who was overcome with grief.

The victim’s husband, a real estate broker and resident of Tariq Road, said he had married Farzana six years back and the infant was their only child.

He said he had called the mother and the sister of his wife from Hyderabad after the shelter home management denied him access to his wife.

Sub-inspector Ataullah Khan Niazi of the Brigade police said that Farzana had left her flat a week back after a quarrel with her husband. He said Jawad had taken her back home from the shelter house.

“The woman again left her home in the evening and reached the shelter home with her infant child,” he added.

The officer said an investigation officer, ASI Saeed Ahmed, was conducting the preliminary inquiry into the matter. “An FIR will be lodged after the police officer completes his initial investigation,” he added.

He said the allegations levelled by Jawad Baloch against the shelter home were being investigated.

Meanwhile, sources at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre said the victim woman was still unconscious and in “highly precarious” condition.

Youth shot dead

The body of a young man was found at a desolate place in the Federal B Area.

It was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where sources said the victim, who remained unknown, was shot a bullet in the chest from a very close range.

They said the victim, wearing blue trousers and blue-yellow printed shirt, appeared to be in his early 20s.

The body was later kept at Edhi’s morgue at Sohrab Goth for want of identification.

Boy run over

An eight-year-old boy was killed and his mother and sister were injured while getting into a passenger coach in Kalri.

Police said the victims, residents of Khokhrapar, were getting into a Shiraz coach when the driver accelerated the vehicle.

They said Irfan, son of Abdur Rahman, was killed instantly and his mother, Fatima, and sister Khadija were wounded.

The police said the driver fled the scene and his vehicle was impounded.

They said efforts were being made to identify the driver.