Domestic servant held for raping housewife

Police say suspect continuously harassed, blackmailed and threatened victim

ISLAMABAD: Police have arrested a domestic servant who allegedly beat up and raped a housewife inside her house a few days ago. The suspect, identified as Assad, was produced before a magistrate on Saturday and given into police custody for two days.

The incident took place on September 11 but the victim did not tell anybody because she was continuously threatened by the suspect who allegedly also took compromising photos of her and threatened to post it online if she told anybody.

The suspect worked as a domestic servant with the landlord who lived in the upper portion of the house, while the victim lived in the lower portion along with her four children and husband, who taught at a college.

The victim’s family says the suspect had been harassing the woman for the past few months. On September 11, she had returned after dropping two of her children at school when the suspect suddenly barged into the house using a duplicate key to unlock the door. He locked up the woman in a room while her two younger daughters played outside. The suspect beat and assaulted her and reportedly also took pictures of her, which he used to blackmail her into silence later on.

Afterwards, he kept texting and calling her with threats to post her pictures on social media and even kill her if she told anyone about the assault. She kept it to herself until a few days later when her husband noticed her depression and upon insistence she told him about the assault.

Khanna police say they arrested the suspect on Friday soon after the matter was reported to them. An officer said the suspect also confessed to committing the crime during initial interrogation. Police said the suspect confessed to taking the woman’s picture but when the police confiscated his mobile there were no pictures. “He had one picture of her but had deleted it,” the officer said.

The woman’s family said the woman has been suffering depression due to psychological effects of the assault.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 23^rd, 2018.