'Child maid was in severely injured condition'

Doctor part of medical panel examining the girl records statement

ISLAMABAD: A doctor told the Islamabad High Court on Tuesday that a juvenile housemaid who was allegedly employed by a judge and tortured by his wife had been brought to the hospital in severely injured condition and had visible injuries to her hand and face.

The witness, a doctor who was part of a panel of doctors who had medically examined the minor housemaid soon after she was recovered by the police, recorded his statement before Justice Aamer Farooq on Tuesday. The doctor confirmed that an initial medical examination of the child was conducted which revealed injuries to the child’s hand and face.



Other doctors, who were also part of that panel, could not appear before the court since one of them had retired since the medical examination while and the other was attending a training course.

Subsequently, the court issued notices to those doctors to ensure their appearance in court on July 4.

Previously, the court had issued notices to the panel of doctors who had conducted a medical examination of the minor housemaid.

Justice Farooq, while issuing a notice to the witnesses for June 20, had said that the court would continue the trial from where another IHC court had left it before excusing itself from hearing the case further.

Documents have revealed that the Additional District and Sessions Judge Raja Khurram and his wife Maheen Zafar, had been charged for allegedly assaulting, confining, ill-treating, neglecting, abandoning, harming and injuring the minor housemaid.

The couple, though, had pleaded ‘not guilty’ after they were indicted and are currently standing trial.

In January, a member of the medical board at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) had said it was possible that the 10-year-old housemaid was a victim of torture and abuse.

“Minor received multiple burns and other injuries to her back, face, legs and abdomen,” Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (SZAMBU) Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Javed Akram had told The Express Tribune back then.



“However, it is for the police to decide whether these injuries were the result of torture or not,” he had added.

Dr Akram was part of the new medical board which had been constituted on January 6 to reexamine the child on the request of a district magistrate. Earlier, a medico-legal report from the same hospital had also confirmed the injuries sustained by the child.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2017.