Police have arrested a cook in central Pakistan who is accused of poisoning to death 22 people as part of a political feud between two branches of the same family, a local police chief said.

The incident in the town of Mailsi in Punjab province followed recent provincial elections in which Arsal Khan Khichi lost to his cousin Jehanzaeb Khan Khichi, police chief Sadiq Dogar said late Thursday.

Arsal Khan Khichi is accused of paying a cook, Mohammad Rafiq, 50,000 rupees ($500) to poison food at his rival’s home on June 9, Dogar said. Nearly 50 people became sick and were taken to the hospital, and 22 died. Jehanzeb Khan Khichi was not at home when the incident occurred, Dogar said.

Rafiq has confessed to poisoning the food, Dogar said. Police waited to arrest him until they received medical reports that confirmed the dead had been poisoned. Arsal Khan Khichi is still on the run, and a murder case has been registered against him as well, Dogar said.

Politics are often a family affair in Pakistan, where it is not uncommon to have members of the same clan running against each other as members of rival political parties.

The great apes can remember events that happened years ago just like men and women do, researchers have found.

As with humans, a reminder of something in the distant past can jog the memories of chimps and orangutans.

Scientists took a group of apes and reconstructed a series of experiments conducted three years previously in which they had had to find hidden tools that could be used to reach food.

Faced with the same set-up of rooms and boxes in which the tools were concealed, the apes immediately knew what to do. It took them only five seconds to find the tools.

Another group of apes which had not had the previous experience were left confused.

A second study showed chimps and orangutans could remember a single tool-finding task carried out two weeks earlier.

The complexity and speed of the apes’ recall ability was unexpected, said the scientists, whose findings appear in the journal Current Biology.

Study leader Dr Gema Martin-Ordas, from Aarhus University in Denmark, said: ‘I was surprised to find out not only that they remembered the event that took place three years ago, but also that they did it so fast.

Dr Martin-Ordas added: ‘Our data and other evidence challenge the idea of non-human animals being stuck in time.’