A Silent Murder – Story of Mrs. Fareed (Part 1)

To fully appreciate this part of the story, it is recommend reading the earlier chapters at the links below:

• A Silent Murder – The Story of Mr. Farid
• A Silent Murder – The Man Before the Fall

These stories provide important context and emotional depth that will enrich your understanding of what follows.

Childhood – The Unseen Foundations

Lubna came into this world not in the sterile white corridors of a hospital, but in the cramped, dimly lit room of their small house. A local midwife, paid with meager savings, delivered her into trembling hands. The family could not afford the luxury of a hospital birth — survival itself was a daily battle, and every rupee was counted with trembling fingers.

It was her grandmother who bestowed upon her the name Lubna, holding the fragile, squirming baby close to her weathered chest as she whispered a prayer for better days — days that, in truth, would never come. Lubna was the youngest in a sprawling family of thirteen: seven rough-edged brothers and four weary sisters. There was a yawning gap of nearly twenty years between her and her eldest brother — a man who seemed more like a stern, distant uncle than a sibling. Only a year and a half separated her from her elder sister Shabana, the one true companion of her early years.

But even companionship could not shield her from the reality of her childhood — a life with no soft corners. In a house where survival was the priority, education was a distant luxury, almost an alien idea. Girls were not prepared for schools or dreams; they were shaped for kitchens and homes. Little Lubna’s world was a cycle of house chores, the clang of steel plates, the dull scratch of scrub brushes, and the heavy scent of lentils bubbling over small fires. Outside was not a world for her — outings were rare, and only in the safe shadow of her mother’s worn shawl.

Thirteen souls lived, breathed, and suffocated together under a crumbling roof. Privacy was a concept they could barely afford. It was in this stifling closeness that Lubna learned to listen more than she spoke, to observe more than she questioned — at least openly.

Change came like a thunderclap when her eldest brother, after fierce and bitter arguments within the family, hastily married a woman no one had fully approved. Lubna watched with wide, confused eyes as a new stranger — her bhabhi — moved into their already overcrowded world. At just five years old, Lubna was thrust into a realm of emotions she neither understood nor dared to question.

For the first time, she observed something curious: the way her brother and bhabhi would sit side by side, their shoulders touching, whispering with smiles they thought were secret. She noticed shared glances, shy smiles across rooms, food eaten from the same plate — things that puzzled and unsettled her young mind. There was a language being spoken without words, and Lubna, sharp and inquisitive far beyond her years, began to crave its understanding.

Terrified to ask directly, she employed a cunning even at that tender age — planting questions into her simple, innocent sister Shabana’s mind, pushing her to seek answers from their mother. The punishments that followed, the slaps and scoldings, fell on Shabana, not on Lubna — a manipulation that would slowly, dangerously, sharpen as she grew.

Lubna’s mind, restless and sharp, refused to be contained. She would feign sleep on her thin mattress in the same congested room, ears keenly alert to whispers and giggles exchanged between the newlyweds in the dark. The house never truly slept; it merely pretended to — and so did Lubna.

Shabana became her involuntary confidant and companion. Being closest in age, they shared everything — chores, laughter, secrets, and sometimes, bruises. They grew up entangled, like vines struggling for space and sunlight in a suffocating, walled garden.

As years passed, the family slowly fragmented under the crushing weight of its own size. Brothers married and moved out, seeking their own cramped corners of the world. Two sisters were married off through an eager matchmaker, in hurried ceremonies that left no room for tears or farewells.

By the time Lubna was 12, her once-crowded home had thinned out somewhat, leaving behind her two brothers (just three and four years older than her) and Shabana. But the house itself had grown no larger, and the hunger for more — more space, more attention, more freedom — gnawed at Lubna daily.

Unseen by others, a darker cleverness was growing within her — a keen understanding of how to maneuver around people’s emotions and weaknesses, honed in the chaos of family dynamics and survival instincts. She was becoming adept at disguising her true thoughts, at letting others take the fall for her whispered provocations.

Among the siblings, only one — their kind-hearted sister Saniya — had dared to stretch toward education. She had managed to finish her F.A. from a government school, where the fees were mercifully low. Saniya was a soft soul, deeply attached to her younger siblings. When their father, the family’s only true support, fell ill and eventually passed away, Saniya was already working a modest job at a small company.

Their father’s death cracked the family’s already fragile world. His modest earnings as a motor mechanic had barely fed thirteen mouths. After his passing, survival slipped from difficult to nearly impossible. The married brothers, burdened with their own struggling families, could spare little help. Their eldest brother, adding salt to the wound, left home entirely, taking his wife and three children with him and vanishing into the mist of poverty and resentment.

It was left to their mother, with her needle and thread stitching neighbors’ clothes late into the night, and Saniya’s meager salary, to somehow keep the crumbling house standing. Food became thinner, dreams even more so.

Through it all, Saniya tried to shelter the younger ones, especially Lubna and Shabana. She would secretly buy them little things — a new scarf, a pair of sandals — out of her own pocket, hiding the purchases like guilty secrets. Her love was pure, desperate, and unconditional. She had become, without any formal declaration, the second mother to the siblings who remained.

And through those tight corridors and hunger-filled nights, Lubna’s cleverness sharpened further. Her mind was a storm of questions, her heart a furnace of silent ambitions. She watched, she learned, and she waited.

The foundations of who she would become were quietly being laid — in shadows, in whispered conversations, and in the unspoken survival games of a life where only the sharpest would thrive.