A couple suspected of murdering their 12-year-old servant was arrested by the city police on Thursday.
The Golra police booked Mudassir Abbass, a manager at NESCOM hospital, and his wife on the charge of murder, six hours after recovering Shan Ali’s body from their house in G-13/1.
The boy’s death was initially termed a suicide by the police until the aggrieved family placed a casket carrying the body outside Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and began to protest over the police’s inaction in catching those responsible for his death. The protest spurred the police into action and the couple was swiftly arrested.
Police said that Abbass himself had reported Ali’s death to them, claiming to have found the body in the servant quarter. There were marks of strangulation on his neck suggesting that he had either been killed or had committed suicide, said a police official. He said the body was shifted to Pims. The official added that the suspects have not confessed to the murder.
Abbass also informed Ali’s family; however his sister, Rubina Shabbir, said Abbass kept giving contradictory statements about the circumstances of her brother’s death.
“First he said Ali had committed suicide by strangling himself with a curtain, and then he said Ali was found dead in his room and somebody had killed him,” she told The Express Tribune.
Upon receiving the news, the family rushed to the Golra police station, from where they were directed to Pims. At the hospital they were told that an unidentified body was shifted to the mortuary.
The sister said last she met her brother he had complained that his keepers beat him severely and refused to go back. However, his family did not take him seriously thinking he was making excuses to quit his job -- Ali had been working since he was six. She said the couple had always shown affection to the boy in front of the family and rejected that they had ever beaten him.
She said she did not know Ali’s keepers personally as he was sent to work there on someone else’s reference. “We needed money so we did not bother to know what kind of people they were,” she added. Ali used to earn a monthly salary of Rs3,500, which was recently raised to Rs4,000.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 6th, 2012.
COMMENTS (4)
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Why does't anyone see the shame of child labourer. is it that only rich are entitiled to dignity. we call ourselves muslim. These are bad times just like during karbela time - where good men are staying away and evil manipulators are ruling.
everyday brutality like this is reported..what kind of a people are we? monkeys are better than us.....
how can people be so cruel....