Detectives have offered a £5,000 reward in the hunt for a man accused of stabbing a mother and daughter to death in the West Midlands.

Raneem Oudeh and her mother Khaola Saleem were attacked in the early hours of bank holiday Monday. Police have been searching for Janbaz Tarin, Oudeh’s former partner, in connection with the killings.



It has since emerged that Oudeh had called police three times in the hours before her death to say that Tarin, 21, had been threatening her. She made her final call as she was being attacked.



The 22-year-old and her mother, 49, died from multiple stab wounds at Saleem’s house on a quiet residential street in Solihull.



West Midlands police said the force had done its “absolute best” to prevent the attack, but the case has been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).



Officers were at the scene within six minutes when it became clear in Oudeh’s final 999 call that the women were being attacked.

Det Chief Supt Mark Payne said: “Unfortunately we can’t always be everywhere and on the night in question we did our absolute best, but we weren’t able to get there in time to prevent a double murder.”

A police forensics officer attends the crime scene in Solihull. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA

Oudeh had a two-year-old child – though Tarin is not the father – and her mother had six children. Both victims were originally from Syria.



Payne said Oudeh had made “a series of phone calls” to police on Sunday and into the following evening. “The first call that was made we responded to. We went to the location where we believed she was, but unfortunately she’d moved on from there.

“We then had a series of conversations with her, lastly the final conversation. We responded immediately to that but tragically we weren’t able to get there in time.”

Police believe Oudeh kept moving to try to get to a “place of safety”.

The force had logged and responded to calls from Oudeh in the past, and had visited the couple. Payne said her relationship with Tarin “had a footprint in domestic abuse”.

“The IOPC, that’s their job … to look at whether we did the right thing. Our job is to investigate the murder,” he said.

Officers believe Tarin, an Afghan national who has been in the country legally since December 2012, is lying low in the West Midlands.

Payne said: “We are now working with Crimestoppers to offer the £5,000 reward to anybody who might be able to help us locate Mr Tarin.

“I want to appeal to Mr Tarin directly. If you’re watching this, we will find you, we will arrest you. Make it easy on yourself and come and talk to us.

“To anyone who might be harbouring or assisting Mr Tarin, again, we will find you. Don’t get yourself in trouble, ring us.”

The public has been advised not to approach Tarin but to call 999.

Police said they had searched several addresses linked to Tarin in Birmingham, including his parents’ home in Sparkhill, and seized computer equipment and mobile phones for analysis.

A postmortem on Tuesday concluded that Oudeh and her mother had died of multiple stab wounds.

