Police investigating family deaths met by wall of silence

Nabeala Hussain was settling her two children into the family Vauxhall Astra outside their home when her husband left to go to work. Mrs Hussain sounded the horn and Danial, three, waved him off.

But despite appearances, all was not well outside the respectable redbrick terraced house in Middlesbrough.

Five minutes after Pervez Aktar left for a local food processing factory, his wife, 23 – whom he wed in an arranged marriage in the Punjab four years ago – drove to a street near by, where she later set the car alight. Nabeala, Danial and her daughter, Salia, one, all died. In the boot lay £20,000 of bank notes in carrier bags, drenched with white spirit.

Witnesses said there was nothing impulsive about Mrs Hussain's actions in Walpole Street 10 days ago. A passer-by asked her the time and she calmly responded, and was seen inside and outside the car during the 90 minutes before her death. Then, at around 4.30pm, she set fire to her handbag in the footwell, turned the engine on and climbed into the back of the car. Danial, who had been due to start at nursery school last week, was beside her and Salia was behind the driver's seat.

The choking fumes given off by the nylon floor carpet and plastic dashboard stifled the flames but Nabeala and her children died of smoke inhalation. The car – and the notes – remained intact.

Police are convinced there is no criminal connection to the money, despite Mr Aktar's£120-a-week salary. They say it is probably attributable to the family's frugal lifestyle and aversion to banks.

But more remarkably, Mrs Hussain's elderly mother, her brother and her sister have said next to nothing about the deaths, though police are convinced they hold the answers.

The family said Mrs Hussain was happy and content. But Detective Inspector Karnail Dulku, who is leading the investigation, says the assertion is "nonsense" and this week accused the family of hampering his investigation.

His frustrations are justified. A detective who arrived to interview Mrs Hussain's mother was told to come back when she had taken tea, later that she was asleep, then that she had gone out. "We have to be sensitive. She has lost a daughter and her grandchildren," said Det Insp Dulku. "But Nabeala was clearly distressed."

The tragedy and its curious aftermath fit a picture of the torment suffered by thousands of Asian women.Their deaths came only 48 hours before Sahda Bibi, 21, died in Birmingham from stab wounds to the neck, inflicted after a family feud over her rejection of an arranged marriage in favour of her "first real love".

According to the Southall Black Sisters pressure group, Asian women are two to three times more likely to commit suicide than the rest of the general population. "Women feel very trapped and they often feel they have no option to but to kill themselves because the community gives them no escape," said Hannana Siddiqui, joint co-ordinator of the group.

Three months ago, the group produced research showing 2,000 Asian women sought counselling each year – almost all of them contemplated or attempted suicide during their married lives. Few were prepared to speak out for fear of bringing shame to the notion of family izaat, or honour – the same notion that caused Bibi's death. "The family notion of honour means the behaviour of women – particularly sexual behaviour – reflects on the reputation of the family and if she is seen to have transgressed ... she brings dishonour on the family," said Ms Siddiqui. "The family closes ranks and the community does too."

Mrs Hussain's cousin Nusrat Bashirsaid yesterday the couple's marriage was good. "They were lovey-dovey," she said. "But I just didn't know her."

Inquiries at the family home yielded no response. Two bunches of chrysanthemums had been lying on the doorstep for some time. They were dying.