Husband on the run after boiling wife’s body in a cauldron in Karachi in front of his children

Karachi: In a shocking incident, a mother of six children was killed and boiled in a cauldron allegedly by her husband in Gulshan-e-Iqbal neighbourhood in Karachi, local media reported.

The body of 32-year-old Nargis was found in the cauldron in the kitchen of a private school located in Block 4 of Gulshan-e-Iqbal, The News reported.

Mobina Town police reached the school after a 15-year-old daughter of the victim called up the police helpline.

Sharing details of the preliminary investigation, District East SSP Abdur Rahim Sherazi told The News that the woman’s husband, Ashiq, hailing from Bajaur Agency, worked at the school as a watchman, and the family resided in the school’s servant quarters.

He said the school had been closed about eight to nine months ago. Following the gut-wrenching incident, the suspect escaped along with his three children, while the remaining three children are in the custody of the police. “Three children are with us,” said SSP Sherazi. “They are traumatised and shocked.”

He said the initial investigations and the children’s statements suggested that the suspect first asphyxiated his wife with the help of a pillow and then boiled her in the cauldron in front of his children. One of the legs of the woman had also been severed from the body, The News reported.

The actual motive behind the incident is yet to be ascertained; however, it has been reported that the husband allegedly forced his wife into having illicit relations and killed her after she refused to obey her, The News reported.

A case has been registered and raids are being carried out for the arrest of the suspect.

“We have his [suspect] two cell phone numbers but he has switched off both of them,” the officer said.

“We are tracing him and will arrest him soon.”

The shocking event brought back the horrific memories of a similar incident that had occurred about 11 years ago when on November 2011 police arrested a woman for killing her husband and attempting to cook his body parts after he planned to marry another woman without her permission.

The police had arrested Zainab Bibi, 32, and her nephew Zaheer, 22, in Shah Faisal Colony, and recovered a bowl of flesh she had planned to cook.

“They killed Ahmed Abbas, Zainab’s husband, and chopped his body into pieces and were about to cook the flesh in a bowl. The knife with which they killed the man has been recovered,” the police had said.

Television networks had shown gruesome footage of the human flesh in a bowl ready for the stove, The News reported.

–IANS