Gujarat: Sick of his drunken brawls, woman kills 20-year-old son

RAJKOT: Daily drunken brawls and tantrums became so unbearable for a 45-year-old woman that she strangled her son in Gandhidham town of Kutch.

Zarina Sheikh, fed up of her younger son Arif’s (20) liquor addiction, took help of her elder son, to strangled him at their house in Sundarpuri locality of the port town. After killing him, Zarina tried make it look like a case of suicide, but his postmortem blew of the lid off her attempt.

Sheikh and Arif’s elder brother Javed were arrested for the crime on Friday. During interrogation, Zarina said that couldn’t take Arif’s daily drunken brawls in the locality and at home any more. Arif would come home drunk, resort to violence and even steal from the house. This had become his daily habit for the last one year. He used to also pick up fights with other residents in the locality.


On Wednesday night, he picked up a fight with his maternal uncle’s son Salman Sumra. Both exchanged blows at Arif even hit him with a stone. When family members including Zarina and Javed intervened, he started fighting with them too and resorted to violence.

In a fit of rage, Zarina then asked Javed and Salman to grab his legs and straddled him on the floor. Zarina then sat on his chest, grabbed him by his throat and started choking him with her dupatta. After he died, the trio hanged him from the hook of the house’s ceiling to make it look like a case of suicide.

“Zarina’s brother in-law Nizam Bhatti then called the police saying that Arif had committed suicide. Seeing the body and the legs touching the floor, we suspected something fishy. The postmortem revealed that Arif had died of strangulation. This raised suspicion of the involvement of the family members in the crime and we quizzed Zarina, who confessed to the crime,” said an official from Gandhidham A division police station.

“Zarina, who had already had enough of Arif's nuisance, could not bear this yet another drunken brawl. Sumra and Javed too rushed to her help and while she was strangling Arif, they grabbed him,” added the official.

While Zarina and Javed have been arrested, a manhunt has been launched for Sumra. Zarina and Javed earn money by working as casual labourers.
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