Police obtain four-day remand of couple for killing minor

Suspect’s wife included in the case as an accomplice

RAWALPINDI: A civil court in Rawalpindi on Tuesday granted police four-day physical remand of two suspects who have been charged with fatally assaulting their minor domestic worker after she set an expensive parrot free.

The suspect’s wife has been included in the case for abetting the offence.

Rawat police on Tuesday presented the two suspects, Hasan Siddique and his wife Umme Kulsoom before Civil Judge Rizwan Hanif Sheikh on Tuesday amidst strict security. Investigators told the court that the suspects were accused of violently beating their minor domestic worker, eight-year-old Zehra bibi, and ultimately causing her death. The incident which triggered the beating was that the child had freed an expensive parrot kept by the couple.

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Police officials said that apart from the physical abuse, they are charging Siddique with sexually assaulting the minor while his wife, Kulsoom, has been nominated as an accomplice to the crime.

The investigation team urged the court to grant them week-long physical remand of the suspects so that they can complete their probe. The court, however, rejected that plea.

Instead, the Civil Judge Sheikh granted police four-day remand of the suspects.

In its orders, the court noted that Kulsoom will be kept in jail and will only be brought to the police station when the investigation officers need to conduct the probe and that she can only be brought to the station after dawn and must be sent back before sunset.

Furthermore, the court bound Rawalpindi police to investigate Kulsoom through a female police officer.

The court also directed Rawat police to prepare a charge-sheet against suspects at the earliest. Meanwhile, sources in the investigating team disclosed that Siddique has allegedly confessed to the crime.

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On the suspicion that the minor was raped, police have collected 20 pieces of evidence from the suspect’s house including her blood-stained clothes, blood and DNA samples.

These samples have been dispatched to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency. The cellphones of the suspect have also been seized. A police official, who requested not to be named as he was not allowed to speak to the media, said post-mortem report of the child is expected within 10 days.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 3^rd, 2020.