KARACHI: A man in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi is suspected and under arrest for pushing his wife to her death from the fourth floor of a building following a quarrel over Rs300 ($1.33), police said on Monday.
Pakistan sees thousands of cases of violence against women every year, from rape and acid attacks to sexual assault, kidnappings, domestic abuse and so-called honor killings. Most incidents go largely unreported, particularly in rural areas, where poverty and stigma prevent victims from speaking out.
A United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report released last month said 32 percent of women in Pakistan had experienced violence.
About the latest incident, police said the suspect, identified as Muhammad Adil, a security guard at a fuel station, had a fight with his wife Mayrium, 21, on Saturday that involved money.
Adil, now booked for murder, had given his wife Rs1,500 on Friday, police said, but when she returned the money the following day, it was Rs300 short.
“Adil pushed his wife off the building after she told him that she had deposited Rs300 at a shop to buy milk for their four-year-old son,” Amin Solangi, Station House Officer (SHO) at Risala Police station told Arab News, saying neighbors called the police.
The officer said the suspect initially said the death was an accident but later confessed to murdering his wife while he was being interrogated.
“They [neighbors] said the couple was quarreling and after a while the woman fell off the fourth floor of the Zubaida Building near Lady Dufferin Hospital of the city,” Solangi said.
“The woman was going to bring back the money from the milk shop situated beneath the building, but her husband ended her life before she could do that,” the officer added.
The death comes less than a month after a man allegedly killed his wife and three daughters with a dagger in Karachi and then attempted suicide with the same weapon.
