A young woman who divorced her husband for another man seeking happiness saw her new life disintegrate when her husband murdered her three-year-old son. Samina Mangarhar, a 28-year-old resident of Sujawal, has accused three men — including her second husband — of murdering her son and fleeing.
Narrating her ordeal outside the civil hospital in Sujawal, she said that she belonged to the poor, nomadic Manganhar tribe. She had been married to a Thatta resident. After marriage, she moved to Thatta, where the two had a child together, three-year-old Mahtab. She said that her first husband was an alms seeker and used to subject her to severe torture daily.
"My marital life was full of miseries with extreme financial constraints and the abusive behaviour of my husband," she said.
In Thatta, she met a man identified as Arshad Mallah. Samina said Mallah pursued her and convinced her to leave her husband for him.
Seeking a better life for herself and her child, Samina agreed and divorced her husband.
She then moved with Mallah to Sujawal with her child.
However, things did not go as she had hoped. Soon after moving to Sujawal, Samina said she saw Mallah's attitude towards her and her child change drastically.
"Instead of consoling me and healing my wounds, Mallah started assaulting me and my three-year-old son," the grief-stricken woman said. She detailed how her second husband would strip her son and beat him.
Samina narrated that when she would ask Mallah to marry her and formalise their relationship, he would refuse, stating that he disliked her son.
"On Friday night, Mallah and his accomplice Zaheer and another unidentified person suffocated my son Mahtab with a pillow," she alleged. She added that she tried to stop them, but the men overpowered her.
After killing the boy, the three men fled.
Samina said she informed the police about the incident. The police rushed to the scene and escorted the boy's body to the hospital for medico-legal formalities.
Police said doctors have said it would take a week to prepare a full autopsy report, which would determine the cause of the child's death.
The woman demanded justice, adding that she never knew that her greed for a happier life would deprive her of her son forever.