Judge’s wife sent on judicial remand

Court turns down police’s request for seven-day physical remand of accused

ISLAMABAD:

An Islamabad-based court has sent Somia Asim – the primary accused in a case concerning the brutal torture of a teenage house help – on a judicial remand for 14 days while rejecting the police’s request for a seven-day physical remand.

On Tuesday, the accused, who is the wife of a civil judge, was produced in the court of Judicial Magistrate Shaista Kundi as the police sought her physical remand to collect the CCTV recordings and receipts of the payments the accused allegedly made to the victim’s mother.

At this, the court inquired the defence counsel about the circumstances under which a female accused could be sent on physical remand. To which the counsel responded that only a female accused, facing murder or robbery charges, could be sent on physical remand.

The court ruled that in the present case, the remand was not an option and that “the focus should be on the law rather than the media.”

Earlier, the accused, who was called to the rostrum, told the court that she was fully cooperating with the investigation. “I was held in the JIT till 11.30pm. I am a mother of three children. I have undergone mental torture twice during interrogations. They took me to a house yesterday and collected things from there,” she told the court.

“I have always cooperated with the police. Maybe, I should end my life after my media trial,” she said, claiming that she did not employ the victim. With this, the accused burst into tears and requested the court to allow her to meet her family. The request was granted by the court.

Later, the court issued its written order regarding the rejection of the request for the physical remand of the accused. In its written order, the court upheld that while the police requested physical remand of the accused but they also admitted that they have made the recoveries. The order said since the accused was a woman and the charges were not of murder or robbery, the physical remand of the accused could not be granted. The court ordered the accused to be produced on August 22.

Post-arrest bail

Earlier, defence counsel Advocate Qazi Dastagir filed an application seeking the post-arrest bail of the accused. The court while issuing notice to the police for August 10, sought arguments from the parties.

The bail plea claimed that the allegations levelled in the FIR were baseless and exaggerated. “There is no doubt that Rizwana was staying at Somia Asim's house with her parent's permission. Somia’s attitude towards Rizwana was similar to that of her children. The facts of the case were purposefully distorted. Somia is an educated, respectable and polite lady who is innocent and has been falsely implicated in the case,” the plea argued.

A Pandora’s Box

On the other hand, CCTV footage connected with the case has opened a Pandora’s Box. According to the footage, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, the victim was handed over to her mother at a bus stand. As per the contents of the footage, on July 23, at 6.57pm, Rizwana is spotted leaving a private housing society by a vehicle which reaches the private bus stop at 8.09pm.

The child struggles to get out of the automobile but eventually manages to do so with assistance. The affected girl can also be seen stumbling in her walk while she is also seen sitting on the bench with the support of her mother.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 9^th, 2023.