In ‘secure’ Askari-III, 5 of a family found slain in house

In the high-security enclaves of Askari-III, five family members were brutally slaughtered and stuffed inside gunny bags in a bungalow near the Cantt Railway Station on Wednesday. Police said the bodies of five, including three women and two men, were recovered from the bungalow after a distress call from the family’s relatives.
Saddar SHO Tasawwar Ameer said when a police party arrived at the bungalow in Askari-III, they found five gunny bags and blood splattered everywhere inside the house. The victims were identified as Arif Yousuf, 68, his wife Zainab Bano, 59, their son Zubair Yousuf, 40, his wife Aalia, 38, and their daughter Rida, 18.
The bodies were shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC).
Ameer said deceased had rented the bungalow recently and apparently had no personal enmities.
Doctors in the JPMC, on condition of anonymity, told Pakistan Today that samples collected from the bodies revealed the presence of a sedative, suggesting that the victims had fallen unconscious before they were killed with a sharp-edged object.
“Stomach samples collected from the deceased have been sent for a chemical examination to determine if they had consumed sedatives or not,” they said. “The blood of the victims’ was fresh and it is believed that they were killed late on Tuesday night or in the early hours of Wednesday.”
The sources said that the heads of the victims had been separated from their bodies and there were deep gashes on every part of the dead bodies. Talking with Pakistan Today, Saddar Division Superintendent of Police (SP) Tariq Dharejo said that Umair Bin Saghir, the son-in-law of Arif, had informed the police about the dead bodies.
As per Umair’s statement, he was at his office when his wife – daughter of Arif – called him up, saying that the family’s driver had been standing outside Arif’s house since early morning, but no body was coming out of the house despite several attempts.
“Umair reached the bungalow and had to break into the house locked from inside,” the SP said. “Once inside, he saw blood everywhere and five gunny bags.”
Dharejo said the police suspects that a family member may have been involved in the killings as tight security inside the Askari-III and the 10-foot-high walls of the house left little chances of an outsider breaking into the house. “There is a possibility that the deceased were given sedatives and then murdered,” he added.
Senior Superintendent of Police Naeem Sheikh said that the motive of the murderers was only to kill the family members as nothing was missing from the house.
“At least two or three people were involved in the murders,” the police officer said. “The killers may have known the family personally.”