Housemaid torture case: Probe panel grills judge’s wife

Accused Somia Asim claims innocence before five-member JIT

ISLAMABAD:

A five-member joint investigation team (JIT), headed by Islamabad DIG Operations Shehzad Nadeem Bukhari, grilled the wife of a civil judge, accused of brutally torturing a teenage housemaid employed in her service, as she appeared before the high-level probe panel on Sunday.

Sources said accused Somia Asim during her appearance before the JIT claimed herself to be innocent, stating that the teenage girl Rizwana was neither employed at her house nor did she work there.

“We were only sponsoring her on someone’s request. We sent Rs60,000 to her parents for financial support,” she told members of the JIT.

Responding to the allegations of torture, the accused denied having tortured the victim. “The girl was not subjected to any kind of torture,” she contended, adding that the girl had a skin allergy.

She further stated that she had no information on how the victim received a head injury, requesting the probe panel to review the recordings of the CCTV cameras installed at her residence.

The accused also assured the inquiry panel of her complete cooperation.

Later, the JIT asked the accused to submit a written response.

Earlier this week, a district and sessions court granted interim bail to the accused until August 7 [today] against a surety bond of Rs100,000, directing her to cooperate with the investigation and appear before ADJ Farrukh Farid at the next hearing.

In her bail application, the accused had termed the allegations levelled against her in the first information report (FIR) ‘baseless, concocted and result of exaggeration’. She maintained that the teenage maid was hired with the consent of her parents and no physical violence was committed against her.

The first information report (FIR) was registered at the Humak police station on the complaint of the victim’s father, Manga Khan. It contained sections 506 (criminal intimidation) and 342 (wrongful confinement) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

Subsequently, the police added 324 (attempted murder), 328-A (cruelty to a child) and other sections pertaining to grievous hurt to the FIR.

Background

According to the complaint, who works as a daily wage labourer at the vegetable market in Sargodha, the girl had been working at the house of the judge in Islamabad for the last six months. She was paid Rs10,000 per month.

On July 23, he along with his wife and a relative went to visit the child. They found her badly injured and crying. She had a wound on the back of her head that had become infected and infested with maggots, the complaint said.

The victim’s father details the various injuries visible on the girl, including her swollen face, cut lip, broken tooth, strangulation marks on the neck, and injuries on the arms and legs.

The FIR further stated that when they asked the girl who tortured her, she said it was the wife of the judge. Quoting his daughter, Khan said that the woman would beat the girl with sticks, starve her and keep her locked in a room.

The girl had earlier undergone an examination at the District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital in Sargodha, with hospital sources confirming to The Express Tribune that the girl had broken bones and ribs, as well as various other signs of torture including burn marks.

In heart-wrenching images that circulated widely on social media, the girl could be seen howling in pain as a doctor tried to highlight the different parts of her body that had been subjected to torture.

The girl has since been shifted to Lahore, where she was said to be under intensive care at a local hospital. The father said she was ‘between life and death’ and that it was getting harder for him to get her the treatment she needed.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 7^th, 2023.