LAHORE – Police in a Punjab city have arrested six people including a man, who allegedly killed his infant daughter on the orders of a faith healer.
The victim’s grandmother and aunt on the father’s side of the family have also been taken into custody by Sargodha police after they allegedly slit the one-and-a-half-year-old girl’s throat last week.
The accused say they acted upon the advice of a local faith healer who told them that their family was being “disturbed by ghosts” because of the toddler.
The man told police that his daughter was possessed by jinns and would make strange sounds that scared her stepmother. He further alleged that the jinns had taken hold of his daughter overnight and slit her throat, according to police.
The parents took their daughter’s body to District Headquarters Teaching Hospital Sargodha, where hospital staff were alerted by their erratic and suspicious behaviour and called the police. They also found that the infant had old cuts along her arms.
“We have arrested six people and registered a murder case,’’ Muhammad Sarfaraz, a police officer in Sargodha city, said on Monday. The faith healer is on the run, he added.
The child’s body remains with the police. Further investigation is underway.
Superstitious beliefs in things such as the presence of ghosts and jinn are common across the South Asian region.
