The body of a sixteen-year-old, who allegedly committed suicide by hanging from a ceiling fan, was found at her home on Thursday. Cantonment police seized the body and sent it for a post-mortem examination.
Police said Shabnam had been living with her brother for the last one-and-a-half-year. They said her brother Asad Asghar had moved to the city in 2011 with his wife and children from his ancestral village, Bhalya. Shabnam had also moved with them. Her parents and her five sisters, all married, stayed back in the village. Asghar had rented a house in Allama Iqbal Town in Rahwali.
He told police that after saying her afternoon prayers, Shabnam had borrowed a ladder from one of the neighbours saying that she needed to clean cobwebs from the ceilings in the house. He said she cleaned one of the rooms before she took the ladder to her room. When she did not come out for some time, he said, he asked his wife to check on her. The door was locked and they had to break in, he said. Shabnam was found dead hanging from the ceiling fan. He informed the police, who sent the body for a post-mortem examination. Investigation Officer Riaz Cheema said that the family did not have any idea why the girl had committed suicide. He said his parents told him that they had talked to her on the phone almost every night, and that she had never complained or mentioned a problem.
Her brother told the police that Shabnam was a very sensitive girl. He said she stayed home all the time and had not fought anybody.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2013.