A man depressed by poverty drugged eight members of his family including five girls and cut their throats with a knife in a Pakistani town, police and reports said on Sunday.
"I am unable to feed my family and I have decided to save them from perpetual hunger, 55-year old Ghulam Mohammad, who disappeared after the murders wrote in a note left behind at his home in Gojar Khan near Islamabad, police said.
In the note Mohammad said that he was going away to the semi-autonomous tribal area bordering Afghanistan, where people fleeing the police usually take refuge.
"Don't try to chase me," police officer Javed Ahmed quoted him as saying.
Reports said that Mohammad, who worked as a bread maker earning less than a dollar a day, was under heavy debt to friends and neighbours.
The man was addicted to gambling that drained his meagre income. Neighbours said that he probably committed the crime in a fit of extreme desperation.
"We are in touch with the political authorities in the tribal areas to arrest him," the police officer said.
Bureau Report
