Culture Shock Led Pakistani Man to Kill Wife and Children in Fire

[azrom]

A Pakistani father who set fire to his terraced home, killing himself, his wife and four sleeping daughters, had failed to cope with their Westernised lifestyles, police said yesterday.

Mohammad Riaz, 49, who grew up in the remote NorthWest Frontier Province of Pakistan, disapproved of the career of his wife Caneze, 39, a community worker in Accrington, Lancashire.

He tried to destroy tight-fitting clothes worn by his daughters and wanted them to have arranged marriages, an inquest was told. The couple’s marriage had come under extra strain because their only son, Adam, 17, was dying of cancer.

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Michael Singleton, the coroner, took 35 minutes to reach verdicts of unlawful killing in the case of Mrs Riaz and her daughters and a verdict of suicide in that of Mr Riaz.

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Before the fire Mr Riaz had seen his wife dropped off by two male friends who had driven her home from a visit to the son’s bedside.

All appeared normal as the family went to bed that night. Barry Khanan, 38, the children’s uncle, had used his mobile phone to film Hannah doing roly-polys.

In the early hours Mr Riaz, who had been drinking, switched on two gas fires and poured petrol in the doorway of the upstairs bedroom where his wife was sleeping alongside the toddler. He poured more outside Sayrah’s bedroom at the back and on the first floor landing and lit it.

He trailed a line of petrol down the stair bannisters to the living room where, police are convinced, he stood waiting for the fire to reach him. When this failed to happen, he went back upstairs and threw himself into the wall of flame.

Scientific examination suggests that the girls died in their sleep but there was evidence that Mrs Riaz woke up. She was able only to move the petrol can to the far end of the bedroom, away from the flames, before she was overcome.

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The couple, who slept apart, fought over Mr Riaz’s demand that his daughters should have arranged marriages and he would destroy any of his wife’s and daughters’ tight-fitting clothes when they emerged from the laundry.

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