‘Tortured' child maid recovered, to be presented in top court on Jan 11

Development comes following Supreme Court's directives to police to recover the 10-year-old within 24 hours

ISLAMABAD: A child maid, Tayyaba, who made headlines after being allegedly tortured at the residence of an additional district and sessions judge, was recovered by police on Sunday.

The 10-year-old girl would now be produced in the Supreme Court on January 11, the next hearing of the case.

On Friday, the apex court ordered authorities to present the girl within 24 hours. The court also overruled the pardon earlier granted to an Islamabad judge by the parents of the housemaid.

Islamabad police, however, had remained unable to trace the girl's whereabouts until now despite conducting multiple raids in the twin cities and in other areas of Punjab.



Earlier, additional District & Sessions Judge Raja Khurram Ali Khan and his wife were booked for allegedly torturing a childmaid working in their house.
Terming the torture a “sordid incident”, Justice Nisar announced that since the parents of the victim “have taken cognisance”, the Supreme Court (SC) would now exercise parental jurisdiction in the case. “We are the parents of the child. We are concerned about the child’s fundamental rights, which cannot be compounded,” Justice Nisar remarked.



During the hearing, two new women appeared before the court, each claiming to be the mother of the child maid. Both, Kausar and Farzana maintained that their child went missing and were willing to undergo DNA tests, if required, to ascertain their relationship.

In the FIR, the girl stated that she had been living at the judge’s house for nearly two years where she was often beaten up. She said when she had lost a broom, ‘Mano Baji’, the judge’s wife, forced her hand on fire, until her flesh sizzled. She was hit on her face with a hot ladle; forced to spend nights locked up in a tiny room, hungry and starving.