Maid found dead in DHA was ‘tortured and murdered’

A medical board of the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) on Tuesday declared that the 17-year-old housemaid found last week hanging from a ceiling fan in her employer’s residence on Khayaban-e-Badban, Phase V, DHA, was actually strangled to death after being tortured.

The body of Fatima, daughter of Abdul Haq, had been taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre by the Gizri police. The medico-legal officer of the JPMC, Dr Noorun Nisa, had ruled the death a suicide.

However, following a protest by Fatima’s family outside the Gizri police station, a separate medical board was formed at CHK to probe the cause of her death. 

Speaking to The News, CHK Additional Police Surgeon Dr Qarar Ahmed Abbasi said a four-member medical board comprising Jinnah Sindh Medical University professor, Farhat Mirza, CHK senior MLO, Dr Sumayya Syed, and police surgeon, Ijaz Khokhar, performed autopsy on the 17-year-old and found that she had been murdered.

Dr Abbasi added that the result of the autopsy suggests the teenager was subjected to torture before being strangulated to death. DNA samples to ascertain whether the victim had been sexually assaulted had also been collected, the police surgeon stated.

Sharing the medical board’s findings, Dr Abbasi said the victim’s neck bore ligature marks. “The direction of ligature marks in a homicide and a suicide is always different,” said the surgeon. Besides, the doctors also found injuries to the girl’s lower lip, chin and chest.

Initially, SHO Gizri police station, Abdul Lateef, had informed The News that Fatima had committed suicide and justified his statement by citing JPMC’s medico-legal examiner. SHO Lateef had claimed that Fatima’s father did not level any accusation against her daughter’s employers but had himself suspected that Fatima had committed suicide.

When asked about the protest that the victim’s family staged outside the police station, the SHO claimed that the family staged the drama to mint money from the employers. JPMC Additional Police Surgeon Dr Kaleem Sheikh, in his defence, said he could not intervene because the matter was being dealt by a female MLO. He said he had no idea how the teenager’s death was ruled a suicide.

However, in what seemed to be an attempt to justify the MLO’s finding, he said MLOs conclude autopsy examinations on the basis of what the police wants them to declare. “In this particular case, the lady MLO declared Fatima’s death a suicide because the police also took it as one,” he said.