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The Irving, Texas, mother accused of strangling her two children earlier this week told a 911 operator she did so because they were both autistic and she wanted normal children, MyFoxDFW.com reported July 21.
Police say the mother, 30-year-old Saiqa Akhter (pictured), strangled Zain, 5, and Faraal, 2, and then called 911.
She can be heard in an audio recording of that call repeating, “I kill my both kids. They are died.”
The Pakistani-born Akhter also told the operator that she tried to make the children drink bathroom cleaner, but they wouldn’t swallow. So instead she wrapped wire around their necks until “they are no more.”
“I know the policeman come to pick me,” she said, according to the recording.
When the operator asked Akhter why she did it, she explained both her children were autistic.
“Both are autistic. I don’t want my kids to be like that. I want normal kids,” she said. “I don’t want my kids to be autistic. I kill both of them.”
Paramedics who arrived at Akhter’s apartment Monday evening found the children blue and unconscious in a bedroom.
Zain was pronounced dead at the hospital. His little sister, Faraal, was taken off life support Wednesday morning.
Akhter now faces capital murder charges.
Akhter has requested a court-appointed attorney but one hasn't been assigned to her case yet, an Irving jail official said Wednesday. If convicted of capital murder, Akhter could face the death penalty, though prosecutors have not said if they will seek that punishment. Otherwise, she could face life in prison without parole.
Saiqa Akhter's uncle, Wasimul Haque, told The Dallas Morning News that his niece had been depressed since moving into a new apartment in Irving. Haque said Zain had autism and a severe speech impediment but had been improving and was in speech therapy.
The children's father, Rashid Akhter, emigrated from Pakistan in the late 1990s, the newspaper reported. He married Saiqa, who also is from Pakistan, several years later, it said.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
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