Sixteen killed in family feud*

 From correspondents in Multan, Pakistan

October 14, 2007 09:18pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse

A BEREAVED father led an armed group that opened fire on his daughter's
in-laws in central Pakistan killing 16 people including three children,
police said.

The father and his associates attacked the in-laws as they gathered
yesterday at their home south of Multan city to break their fast for the
holy month of Ramadan, police said.

The shootings were an apparent revenge attack for the deaths of four
members of the father's own family including his daughter last year,
local police official Sheikh Abid Akhtar said.

“It was a family feud. Fourteen people died on the spot when armed
people opened fire indiscriminately,” Sheikh Akhtar said.

Two people later died in hospital, he said, while hospital sources said
another three were in critical condition.

Police later surrounded the gunmen in a sugarcane field, where a
standoff was ongoing.

“No one has been arrested so far,” Sheikh Akhtar said.

The blood-soaked feud started in 2006 when the father ordered his newly
wed daughter and son-in-law to live with him in the family home, the
police officer said.

Arguments quickly erupted over the arrangement with the son-in-law's
family, who later raided the father's home and shot dead his two
daughters, his wife and infant grandson.