Woman approaches court against employer for torturing daughter

Sawaira slipped down stairs that fractured her backbone, claims the accused

LAHORE: A woman reached the district and sessions court for complying with the court order after police seemed reluctant to register an FIR against an employer for allegedly torturing her daughter.

The victim, Sawaira, worked as a domestic helper for a family.  Rani Bibi, the mother of the victim, filed a compliance petition, seeking direction for the SHO Sanda in the light of an order which the additional district and sessions judge Rafaqat Ali Gondal passed to the SHO to record her statement under section 154 CrPC and proceed in accordance with the law. However, the accused denied the allegations, saying that the girl slipped on stairs.

Sawaira got her backbone fractured in 2016 while working in the house of her employer Muhammad Khurram. She was taken to the hospital and was provided with the medical treatment. While filling in her history and physical examination form, the victim told the doctor that she had slipped on the stairs.



Later in 2017, the mother of the victim decided to go into litigation after the lapse of a year. She filed a petition against Khurram, his brothers, Mujahid, Farooq and his wife for torturing her daughter after the accused refused to give her the salary. In her petition, she said the accused thrashed her daughter with sticks and threw her from the roof of their house. As a result, Sawaira’s  backbone was fractured and she was paralysed.

The judge passed an order directing the SHO to record the version of the petitioner and proceed in accordance with the law. However, the woman again reached the court to file a compliance petition against the accused persons as no action was taken by the police.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Sheikh Faheem, advocate counsel for the petitioner, said the victim was paralysed owing to the torture of the members of the accused family.



One of the accused, Khurram, said the allegations were false and merely levelled against him and his family just to humiliate and blackmail them.

He added that the police submitted comments in favour of the accused after probing the matter as the girl slipped down the stairs and nobody had tortured her. He questioned that if the story of the victim was true, why a petition has been filed after the gap of a year.

Sub Inspector Rana Bashir, who conducted the inquiry, told The Express Tribune that the allegations levelled against the accused had nothing to do with the reality. He claimed that he had heard both the parties and did not find the accused being involved in any kind of torture.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2017.