A court on Monday granted bail to a couple arrested for allegedly torturing and burning a domestic worker with a hot iron after she mistakenly burned her dupatta while ironing it.
The investigating officer (IO) of the case produced Shahroz and his wife Kanwal Shahroz before a judicial magistrate (East) and requested their physical remand for interrogation.
The defence counsel claimed that while his client apologised for the incident, they were being blackmailed by the complainant. He argued that sections invoked against them were bailable and requested the magistrate to grant bail to his clients. After hearing the IO and the defence side, the magistrate granted post-arrest bail to them against a surety of Rs30,000 each.
An FIR has been registered at the Ferozabad police station under sections 328-A, and 337A(i) of the Pakistan Penal Code and relevant sections of the Sindh Prohibition of Employment of Children Act, 2017.
According to the FIR, complainant Asia stated that three months ago, her daughter Zainab, aged about 12/13 years, was employed by Shahroz and his wife Kanwal Shahroz as domestic help for a monthly salary of Rs10,000. She said that her daughter lived at the employer’s flat on Khalid bin Waleed Road, in PECHS, Block 2. The woman said that on August 31, 2025, Kanwal informed her over phone that her daughter was unwell and that she should come and take her, adding that she then went to the flat to take her daughter. The complainant said that her daughter showed her burn marks on different parts of her body caused by a hot iron and told her that on August 29, at around 7 pm, while she was ironing Kanwal’s clothes, her dupatta got burned by the iron. At this, Kanwal beat her daughter and pressed the hot iron on different parts of her body.
“My daughter begged for forgiveness with folded hands, but Kanwal did not listen,” the woman said, adding that Kanwal’s husband also beat her daughter. Zainab was burned with an iron, the marks of which are evident all over her body, including her waist, arms and legs. According to the police, the girl was shifted to Jinnah Hospital in a critical condition.
A case has been registered at the Ferozabad police station on the complaint of the employee’s mother, Asia, and the couple has been arrested.
They added that the 12-year-old domestic worker was subjected to the worst torture by the husband and wife in the Mustafa Center residential building located on Khalid Bin Waleed Road. SHO Tariq Mahmood said the police, acting on Asiya’s complaint, had arrested the couple.