Pakistan sweet shop owner kills 30, including children, with poison

A Pakistani shop owner has confessed to killing at least 30 people by contaminating his sweets with pesticide.

Khalid Mehmood confessed to putting poison in the sweets to take revenge on his older brother, police told the AFP news agency.

Mehmood believed elder brother Tariq, who owned the sweet shop with him, "insulted and abused" him in a business dispute, it is alleged.

"I wanted to teach him a lesson," police investigator Mohammad Afzal quoted him as saying.

"I was so angry that I mixed the pesticides bottle in the sweets being baked at that time."

The poisoned batch was purchased by a local man who gave the sweets to family and friends celebrating the birth of his grandson.

The baby's father, six of his uncles and one aunt were among the 30 killed. The dead also included five children and four victims are still in hospital.

Police told reporters that 52 people had eaten the sweets.

Both the Mehmood brothers were arrested, along with one of their employees.

The brothers are due to appear in court in central Punjab province on Saturday, Afzal said.

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