A murder case was registered against the woman after the children died under mysterious circumstances in Mohalla Raja Sultan, within the jurisdiction of Banni Police Station.
Police formally arrested the children’s mother and presented her before the court. The children’s father had expressed suspicion against his wife, accusing her of murdering their children, following which a case was registered under murder charges.
The mother herself was under treatment at a hospital under police custody, allegedly after attempting suicide by poisoning.
According to the police, Saleem Masih got a case registered on June 24 with Banni police, stating that he works as a sanitary worker at AFIC Hospital and lives in a three-storey house with his joint family.
He married Zunaira Bibi six years ago. The couple had three children: four-year-old daughter Minsa, two-and-a-half-year-old son Noel, and eight-month-old daughter Marisha. On Friday, his wife took the children to her aunt’s home in Gujranwala without his approval and returned on Sunday. They argued on Monday, and he reportedly told her not to take the children with her again. In response, she allegedly said, “I might do something to the children.”
On Tuesday morning, he left for work at 7am. Around 2:30pm, a neighbour called him to say all three children had been found unconscious and taken to the hospital. When Saleem arrived at Holy Family Hospital (HFH), he found all three children dead in the emergency ward and was informed that his wife was also undergoing treatment.
The complainant strongly suspected that his wife intentionally poisoned the children or used some other method to kill them.
Initial examination revealed no external injuries on the children, while scratches were found on the mother’s wrists, according to a female constable.
Police registered a murder case and initiated an investigation. In her initial statement, the mother claimed she gave the children milk with breakfast and drank some herself, after which the incident occurred.
Since the suspect was hospitalised, she was kept under protective custody while police continued to investigate and recorded statements from family members, which reportedly support the father’s allegations.
The police said that samples from the children’s postmortem and the mother’s stomach contents had been sent to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA), and that the final cause of death would be determined after the forensic report is received. After the suspect recovered, the police formally arrested her and presented her before the court.