In another heart-rending incident in the metropolis, five members of a family were found dead inside their locked one-room home in a housing society near Gulshan-i-Hadeed on Tuesday morning, police said.
Police found a handwritten “suicide note”, which suggested that the family was facing severe financial difficulties.
The incident is reminiscent of last month’s mysterious deaths of a doctor, his wife and their three daughters inside a locked apartment in Ahsanabad.
Bin Qasim SHO Faisal Rafiq told Dawn that the five bodies were found from the one-room portion of a three-storey house in Gulshan-i-Falaknaz.
He said the house was locked from the inside and an iron rod was stuck in the handle.
The deceased were identified as Shahzeb Nawazish, 35, his wife Saba, 28, their two minor daughters, Ayzal, 5, and Arya, 3, and his younger sister Shumaila Nawazish, 22.
Shahzeb and his wife sustained bullet wounds, while the three other victims appeared to have been poisoned as their bodies bore no marks of torture or injury, police said.
The SHO said that the bodies of the couple were found on a sofa, with a pistol found in Saba’s lap.
The bodies of Shumaila, Ayzal and Arya were found lying on the bed, covered with sheets. They had sustained no bullet wounds and appeared to have been poisoned, he added.
The bodies were shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) for medico-legal formalities.
An Edhi Foundation volunteer told Dawn outside the JPMC mortuary that they have received information about the bodies at around 4:40am on Tuesday.
Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed told Dawn that the couple had each sustained a single bullet wound to the head.
She said the cause of death of the remaining three victims had been reserved until receipt of the chemical analysis, serology and DNA reports.
