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The terrified wife of one of the country’s top surgeons mum screamed “save my children” moments before a malicious fire wiped out her family.

The partner and three children of Beaumont Hospital neurosurgeon Dr Mohammed Taufiq Sattar were tragically murdered in an arson attack in the early hours of Friday morning.

Dr Sattar, who has lived in Ireland since 1995, had spoken to his family at midnight, less than half an hour before thugs attacked their home

in Leicester.

Police in the UK believe the family may have been the victims of mistaken identity in a revenge attack for a brutal street murder hours earlier.

Mum of three Shehnila Taufiq, 47, daughter Zainab, 19, and two sons, Bilal, 17, and 15-year-old Jamal lost their lives in the blaze at their home in Spinney Hills.

Neighbours reported hearing the distraught mum plead for firefighters to save her daughter, as they were trapped by the intense flames.

(Image: Simon Ashton)

Dr Sattar, 52, was at his home in the Dawah Community Centre in Castleknock, West Dublin, when he got the call three hours later to say there had been a fire.

Speaking to the Irish Mirror his close pal Mujahed Omer described Dr Sattar’s dramatic dash to Leicester.

Mr Omer said: “He was talking to his family on the phone at 12am. He would talk to them all the time, every time he had a spare minute he would be calling them.

“The doctor called me around 3.30am, he was very upset and

in shock. He said a neighbour from the UK called him to say there was a fire at his home.

“He asked me to call the fire brigade and I did that. They told me to call the police and I gave them the doctor’s number.

“The doctor went straight to Dublin Airport and he got a call at 5.30am or 6am to say they had all died.

“He called me and he was very shocked, he was crying.”

The family, originally from Karachi in Pakistan, moved to Ireland from Saudi Arabia in 1995 after Dr Sattar got a job as a consultant neurosurgeon in Beaumont Hospital.

They settled in Carpenterstown and were heavily involved in the local Muslim and Pakistani communities.

Mum Shehnila and children moved to Leicester five years ago so the children could continue their Islamic studies.

Dr Sattar travelled over to the UK every second weekend while the family would come back to Ireland regularly.

Mr Omer explained they spent the entire month of Ramadan in Dublin this summer.

He added: “The children were so intelligent. During Ramadan they recited the Quran by heart each day. They were still studying at school and their father really wanted them to become religious men and women.

“At the end of Ramadan when they were leaving for the UK they hugged us really tight and told us they didn’t want to go back, that they wanted to stay here in Ireland.”

Mr Omer said the family did plan to return to live in Dublin after finishing their studies.

However, tragedy struck when their terraced home was turned into a “vision of hell” by the inferno, which started shortly after midnight.

In a dramatic twist, police said they were investigating a link between the fatal fire and the murder of former Leicester Nirvana FC player Antoin Akpom less than a mile away just seven hours earlier.

In that incident the victim, who was in his 20s and had a young son, was stabbed in a red light zone close to Leicester city centre, at around 5.30pm on Thursday and died later in hospital.

Describing both incidents as “terrible, terrible crimes”, Assistant Chief Constable Roger Bannister said: “An element of revenge is one of a number of lines of enquiry we are looking at.”

The blaze was believed to have been started at the front door.

One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said the property “exploded”, sparking fears it may have been firebombed.

The cause of the fire was still being investigated last night, as sniffer dogs were used outside the house to check for accelerants and at a nearby car park.

Soheb Ali, 22, a trainee automotive electrician, was one of the first neighbours on the scene and told of frantic efforts to save Mrs Taufiq and her children.

He said: “There were loud bangs like fireworks going off.

“I ran outside and saw the house on fire. The whole staircase was on fire. There was no chance of anyone getting out.

“People were screaming and trying to break the house’s windows. The stairway looked like a vision from hell. There was just a wall of fire.”

Another neighbour who did not want to be named said: “I heard screaming, lots of screaming, I could hear a woman’s voice shouting out, ‘Please help, save my children’.”

The bodies of all four victims were found in upstairs bedrooms.

Family friend Zeeshan Bawany, 32, from Leicester, explained Dr Sattar asked him to check on the house, as he could not believe his family had been killed.

He said: “He couldn’t believe what was being said to him. He just went into that state of denial. He wanted somebody else to tell him.”

Hundred of pals gathered at the Dawah Centre in Castleknock last night where people openly wept and wailed over the horror deaths.

A bus is being organised to bring members of the Muslim community from Dublin to Leicester for the funerals in the coming days.

Beaumont Hospital issued a statement saying: “We wish to express our sincere condolences to Mr Sattar and assure him that our support and thoughts are with him at this terrible time.”