Police see child domestic help’s ‘suicide’ as murder

GUJRANWALA: Two men are learnt to have taken the body of a 12-year-old boy named Ashfaq Shamshad to the District Headquarter Hospital, claiming that the boy had committed suicide.

They said that the boy used to work at their house.

They left the hospital as soon as they handed over the boy’s body to the hospital staff.

Doctors later called in the police when they became suspicious about the child’s death. Ashfaq had a constricted windpipe, rope burns and abrasions on his neck and wrists. His body was sent to the mortuary after an autopsy.

Ashfaq is said to have been working at the residence of a homeopathic doctor named Zahid Mehmood in the New Muslim Colony for the past two years. Ashfaq was the only helper for a household with two boys and two girls. His body was brought to the hospital by  Zahid’s sons.

Officials of the Satellite Town police station raided Dr Zahid’s house to discover that the family had already packed and left. SHO Iqbal Aujla stated that the boy could not have managed to tie his own hands before hanging himself. He said that he suspected someone in the family might have been involved in the boy’s death. Police officials have registered a murder FIR against Zahid and are conducting raids in search of the absconding family members.

Zahid’s neighbour Sarfaraz Mughal said that the man and his family “often tortured Ashfaq”, adding that the boy was often scolded.

“Sometimes we could hear Ashfaq crying and screaming for help. We could tell that he was being beaten up.”

Another neighbour Asghar Ali said: “We all knew that Ashfaq was not treated well. Whenever the family used to leave the house to go somewhere, they would tie Ashfaq on the roof under the sun because they did not trust him inside their house alone.”

Ashfaq is survived by six siblings.

His uncle Rizwan said that he was too young to even think about taking his own life.

Rizwan said that this was a “clear case of murder”.

The family lives in Kamoke in a small village called Chak Hinda.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2010.