MULTAN, Pakistan: A Pakistani woman who gave her husband poisoned milk ended up killing him and 12 of his family when the tainted liquid was turned into a yoghurt drink and served to him and his relatives, police said.
The woman, who was forced by her family into an arranged marriage in September, has been arrested and charged with murder along with her alleged lover, senior police official Owais Ahmad told reporters in central Pakistan’s Muzaffargarh district on Monday.
Police said Asiya Bibi mixed poison into her husband’s milk last week but he initially failed to drink it and it was instead blended into a batch of yoghurt-based lassi and served to the man’s family.
Thirteen people have so far died, including the husband, while a further 14 have been hospitalized, Ahmad said.
“Police have arrested Asiya Bibi, a man and his aunt for being accomplices and charged them with murder,” Ahmad said.
He said the man was allegedly Bibi’s lover and that his aunt helped hatch the murder plot.
Forced and under-age marriages are common in deeply conservative Pakistan, particularly in rural and impoverished regions, where women have fought for their rights for decades.
Pakistani wife ‘kills’ husband, 12 others with poisoned lassi
Pakistani wife ‘kills’ husband, 12 others with poisoned lassi
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
