Lahore: A man from Pakistan, accused of killing his week-old daughter by shooting her five times because he wanted his firstborn to be a boy has been arrested. A newborn girl named Jannat Fatima was killed on Sunday in the city of Mianwali, in central Punjab province, sparking a manhunt for her father Shahzeb Khan, who was arrested on Wednesday night following a series of raids, Pakistan’s Punjab police said.
‘The police were told by the complainants that the killer had been complaining for three or four days that he had wanted a son and he had been very angry’, Zarrar Khan, spokesman for Mianwali police was quoted by AFP. ‘His wife also confirmed that he was angry about having a daughter and wanted a son’, he added.
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The incident came almost a month after a pregnant Pakistani woman was brought to a hospital with a nail hammered into her head after a faith healer said it would guarantee she gave birth to a boy. The mother of three daughters said she was pregnant with another girl. In the deeply patriarchal country, a son is often believed to offer better financial security to parents than daughters, and girls and women face widespread violence.
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