The Leicester Police has launched a murder investigation after bodies of a British Pakistan woman and her three teenage children were found in a house that was set on fire in Leicester early Friday morning.
The victims, described as a “humble, spiritual and learned family”, have been named as Shehnila Taufiq, the mother and her teenage children, Zainab, Bilal and Jamal Sattar.
Mrs Taufiq was in her late 40s and the children 19, 17 and 15, respectively, said the police.
The family is originally from Karachi and but had now settled in Leicester.
The children’s father, Dr Muhammad Taufiq Al Sattar, worked as a neurosurgeon at BeaumontHospital in Dublin, and the family sources said that at time of incident he was in Ireland.
At a press conference on Friday, the assistant chief constable of the Leicester Police, Roger Bannister said officers were investigating a possible link between the fire and the murder of a man in his 20s in Highfields, Leicester last night.
Bannister said the possibility of the fire being a revenge attack was one of the lines of inquiry being pursued by officers. He added that the circumstances and the cause of the fire, and where the fire started, were under investigation.
Bannister said, “At this stage we believe they have died as a result of the fire, but inquiries will continue.”
He did not believe that either the family in the house blaze, nor the man killed in Highfields, were known to the police. He added, “I really do understand the level of concern in the community.”
Local Muslim, Ibrahim Mogra said the four who died in the house were “a spiritual, humble and learned family, and well respected within the community”, adding, “This is a tragic loss of life.”
Officers said they were called by Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service at 12:35am today to the house in Wood Hill, off Spinney Hill Road, in the Spinney Hills area of the city.
The four people were found dead in an upstairs bedroom. The upstairs windows of the mid-terrace bay-fronted property were severely blackened by the blaze.