LAHORE: A gym trainer who used to tell friends that good health was a greater blessing than money was found shot dead beside his wife at their Ichhra home on Wednesday, leaving two young sons without either parent.
Police identified the couple as Rehan Latif and his wife, Mahwish, of Shakir Road. Their initial finding is that Latif shot her during a domestic quarrel and then took his own life.
The two lived with his family in a shared house. Police said neighbours heard an argument followed soon after by gunfire. Relatives who ran to an upstairs room found both of them shot, according to accounts gathered at the scene.
SP Model Town Asad Ali reached the house with the ASP Gulberg and the Ichhra station house officer. He said forensic experts had collected evidence and the bodies had been sent for post-mortem examination. The couple married 11 years ago, had two children and argued frequently, the officer added.
Police gave Latif’s age as 33, while reports of Mahwish’s age range from 31 to 35. Friends describe theirs as a marriage of choice. The boys are 11 and six.
Those who knew Latif struggled to match the police account with the man they trained beside. A fellow trainer Jawad, who said the two had been friends for 26 years, called him a teacher and elder brother who had brought him into the fitness trade. “He had so much courage that we drew ours from him,” the friend told a local reporter outside the house.
Latif’s favourite line, he recalled, was that the highest form of rizq is a healthy body and a sound mind, and that money ranks lowest. Even when he had worries of his own, he would set them aside to lift others.
The friend had not seen him for about a week because of long shifts. Then, at around 2:30am on Sunday night, Latif rang to ask where he was. The call was out of character and he sensed something was wrong, but Latif told him to go back to sleep because both had an early start.
On Wednesday, roughly 15 minutes before the shots, Latif spoke to another friend Nasir and said he was leaving home to meet them, the trainer said. A separate account circulating locally has him telling a friend he was heading to a job interview and asking for prayers. Police have confirmed neither conversation.
One claim is still untested. A local report said the weapon was lying some distance from the bodies, which led some residents to ask whether the order of events was as first described. Police have not backed that suggestion and say the post-mortem and forensic results will settle it.
The motive is equally unclear. The friend insisted the family seemed content, with Latif’s parents living under the same roof. A local journalist pointed to the interview remark and blamed the rising cost of living, though investigators have not cited money as a cause.
The grief quickly turned bitter. When Mahwish’s parents arrived, the two families argued over who would raise the boys, according to the same report. Only last month the Lahore High Court, in an unrelated custody case, stressed that children are not property.
The deaths come less than three weeks after a husband shot his wife in Shahdara over a domestic dispute. Lahore had already recorded 194 murders and 331 attempted murders this year by mid-September. Punjab, meanwhile, is still holding consultations on a mental health policy framework for the next decade.
Ichhra police say they are piecing together the evidence to establish what led to the shooting. Funeral details were not immediately available.
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