Teenage housemaid found dead in Karachi's Defence

Parents say daughter was tortured to death by employers, police claim girl committed suicide

KARACHI: A teenage housemaid was found dead in a house in Defence House Authority (DHA) under mysterious circumstances on Saturday.

According to the parents, F*, 18, was tortured to death by her employers who live on Khayaban-e-Badar. However, police claimed that the girl committed suicide.

Carrying the body of the girl, her family staged a sit-in outside the Gizri police station and demanded action against F's employer.
South SSP Javed Akbar Riaz told The Express Tribune that F was working in bungalow located in Phase VI of DHA, and was found hanging from a ceiling fan.

"The house owner works at a private company and lives at the bungalow with his wife. They had provided a room to F in the same house," Riaz said, adding that the deceased was shifted to Jinnah hospital where medico-legal findings confirmed that she committed suicide. The teenager's mother is Burmese and father Bengali.

Meanwhile, F's father, who lives in Ali Akbar Shah muhallah of Ibrahim Hyderi, said it was a premeditated murder and there were torture marks on his daughter's body.

"She [F] called us last Friday night and said she was going on a picnic. When we asked about money, she said the house owner had arranged for it. Now, we have received the news of her death," said the teenager's father, adding that the employer used to give his daughter extra money and recently gifted her a smartphone without his wife's knowledge.

"There are clear torture marks on her body, but after receiving a bribe police have given a statement in favour of the house owner," he claimed, appealing to the chief justice of Pakistan to take notice of the incident.

*Name has been changed to protect privacy