MUZAFFARABAD:In a horrifying incident in Dadyal, a man murdered his wife and four-year-old daughter and seriously injured his five-year-old daughter by opening fire and launching repeated knife attacks on them, police said on Wednesday.

According to Rashid Habib Masoodi, station house officer (SHO) in Dadyal, an affluent town in Mirpur district of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the gruesome episode occurred during the night between May 20 and 21 in Bakrwal Colony, where the accused Mohammad Siddique, a mason by profession fatally attacked his wife, Razia Bibi, with gunfire and multiple stabbings.

He then turned the knife on his two young daughters, four-year-old Maheen Siddique and five-year-old Hajwera.

Maheen succumbed to her injuries on the spot, while Hajwera was critically wounded, the SHO said, adding that after committing the crime, the accused also stabbed himself and sustained serious injuries.

Upon receiving a call from the suspect`s neighbours, a team from Dadyal police station, led by DSP Syed Ishtiaq Gillani, rushed to the scene and removed the bodies for post-mortem, while the injured the surviving daughter and the suspect were shifted to a hospital for medical treatment, the SHO added.

He said that police had registered a case on the complaint of Mohammad Suleman, the suspect`s father-in-law, and launched an investigation.

According to SHO Masoodi, the cause of the murders could not be immediately ascertained, as the suspect hospitalised under police surveillance was unable to provide a statement due to his medical condition.