Woman who murdered domestic aide yet to be arrested

Karachi

Though the police has booked Aneela, a woman who allegedly killed her young domestic worker in her house in Phase I of the Malir Cantonment on Thursday, the suspect was yet to be arrested and officials continue efforts to nab her, investigators said on Friday.

The woman is accused of beating her 16-year-old domestic aide to death with a blunt weapon, the official said.

According to Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Airport Iftikhar Lodhi, a murder case has been registered against the suspect on complaint of the victim’s brother, Ali Mohammad.

DSP Lodhi said the suspect, who is still at large, ran away from her house on Thursday and according to the information available with the police, she was living with her family in a rented house.

He added that a security agency was also helping the police to arrest the suspect.

The young boy had lost his life to the barbaric temper of his employer, who hails from an influential family.

Sixteen-year-old Anas, son of Abdullah, breathed his last at the Jinnah Hospital where he was brought in a critical condition. He was severely beaten up by his employer, Aneela.

The woman was reported to have lost her temper after her minor son was hurt while playing a game with Anas. 

The boy, according to the police, hailed from Jacobabad and had been working at the woman’s house for the past 10 years.

A medico legal officer at the JPMC, in his initial postmortem report, stated that there were multiple injuries on the boy’s body, DSP Lodhi said.  However, the report has not been shared with the media to ascertain the exact cause of death.

Human rights experts say the data on violence against children working as domestic workers is one of the hardest to collect. Cases of violence surface at the worst possible situations, when a child is brought to the hospital after being severely beaten or when the employer fears that the victim might die, says Memon, who is the coordinator for Sindh with the movement – a consortium of NGOs working for child rights in the country. “The daily abuses are conveniently shoved under the rug and hundreds of thousands are living a miserable life.”