Man shoots dead 7-day-old daughter because he wanted a son

Pakistani Police have launched a manhunt for a man named Shahzaib Khan, who allegedly shot dead his newborn baby girl because he wanted a son. The incident occurred on Monday in the Mianwali city of Pakistan's Punjab province.

The suspect ran away after firing multiple times at his 7-day-old baby. The child received five bullet wounds and died on the spot, according to local police officers.

"We are trying to arrest the accused, who is still at large. A baby girl was born... he was infuriated," Mianwali police officer Hayatullah Khan told The Dawn. The girl's maternal uncle has lodged a police complaint against the father.

The man allegedly threatened everyone in his family and pointed the gun at them before asking the mother to hand over the child to him.

"Fuming in anger, he first beat me and cursed our daughter. Later, he took out a pistol from the cupboard and pumped bullets into her body," said the baby's mother, Fatima.

"My husband was obsessed about having a boy, but no one in the family knew that he would commit such a gruesome crime -- killing his own daughter," she said.

The incident has sparked an outrage in Pakistan which already has a bad track record when it comes to crime against women.

"This is beyond barbaric, brutal and vicious. The only solution to stop this brutality is hanging him publicly," wrote Twitter user Tehseen Qasim.

According to human rights groups, female infanticide is rampant in Pakistan. The country comes in the list of worst-performing countries when it comes to gender parity. It came at the 153rd position out of a total of 156 countries on the World Economic Forum's 2021 Gender Gap Index.

More than 500 bodies of infants have been found dumped in Pakistan's largest city Karachi in the last two years, and most of these were girls, according to the Edhi Foundation.

Violence against women in Pakistan has become endemic. According to a report by Human Rights Watch on Pakistan, "Violence against women and girls – including rape, murder, acid attacks, domestic violence, and forced marriage – remains a serious problem throughout Pakistan."