Police seen covering up housemaid’s rape, murder

Officials refused to consider the post mortem report while registering the case.

DEPALPUR:

Police officials have been accused of covering up the murder of a fourteen-year-old housemaid in the district.

Housemaid Khalida was allegedly raped and murdered by her employees on March 22nd, 2011. Khalida had been working at the house of Rab Nawaz and Maqbool for over seven years and her own family lived in a village in Depalpur several miles away from Multan.

A few weeks ago, the girl’s family received a call from her employers.

“They told us that our daughter had died of electrocution and that we should take the body,” said Khalida’s father Rasool.

Her mother Naghma said that the family was offered no other explanation of their daughter’s death. “We went to collect the body and then we realised that she hadn’t been electrocuted. The body bore signs of abuse and there were clear bullet wounds,” Rasool said.

Khalida’s parents took the body to the Depalpur DHQ hospital for a post mortem. The post mortem report confirmed that Khalida had been raped by three different men and that she had been shot at point-blank range.

“I found four bullet wounds and I personally went with the family to register an FIR with the police,” said Dr Ameenullah Khan.

“The child couldn’t possibly have been electrocuted as there was no sign of any burns anywhere on the body,” he said.

Khalida’s family said that when they approached the police to register the case they ignored their account. “The police did agree to file an FIR.

They said that the family had called them and registered the case by detailing the ‘facts’,” Rasool said.

“The police said that the girl had been electrocuted and completely ignored the medical report,” said Dr Khan. Police official Saadullah said “We took into account the employer’s testimony because they called in first. Why would they do so if they were guilty?” he said.

“They are trying to pretend that our version of events doesn’t even exist, even though we have proof,” said Rasool.

The family said that the police told them they had already filed the case and they would consider the medical evidence in their investigation. “They said it couldn’t be added in the FIR because that had already been registered on the employers request,” Rasool said.

“We did nothing wrong. The girl died of an electric shock from the spark plug of an iron.

We reported the incident to the police and called her parents.

There was nothing more we could do,” said Rab Nawaz. “The rest of the allegations are completely false. They have fabricated evidence against us,” Maqbool said.

Khalida’s family protested outside the Thaana City Depalpur for several hours on Tuesday afternoon and demanded that the chief minister and chief justice take note of the incident.

“The family are blowing this all out of proportion.

We have registered the case and we are investigating the matter.

There will be no favouritism,” said Station House Officer (SHO) Naseer Khan.



Published in The Express Tribune, April 6^th, 2011.