ISLAMABAD: The controversy surrounding Tayyaba, the minor housemaid who was allegedly abused by the family of an additional district and sessions judge (ADSJ), deepened on Friday when two women appeared before the Supreme Court, claiming that the girl may be their daughter. The apex court, however, directed Islamabad police to verify both women’s claims.

Conducting suo motu proceedings on the matter, Chief Justice Saqib Nisar also summoned Assistant Commissioner Nisha Ishtiaq – who had recorded Tayyaba’s statement where she claimed to have been physically abused by ADSJ Raja Khurram Ali Khan and his wife.

During the course of proceedings on Friday, two women; Kausar Bibi, widow of Mohammad Nawaz; and Farzana Bibi, wife of Mohammad Zafar, appeared before the court and claimed that Tayyaba could be their missing daughter.

Kausar Bibi told the court her daughter went missing in 2014 and she had registered an FIR of her disappearance. Chief Justice Nisar directed police to investigate the matter. Farzana Bibi, meanwhile, claimed that Tayyaba’s photographs resembled those of her own missing daughter.

DIG tells SC police still trying to track down minor girl, supposed parents

Deputy Inspector General (Operations) Kashif Alam sought time from the apex court to carry out the investigation and told the court police could not produce Tayyaba and her parents since they could not be tracked down, but efforts were being made to located them and produce them at the next hearing.

“Let the needful be done on an urgent basis and some outcome be [conveyed] to this court on the next date of hearing,” the court ordered.

On Thursday, a petition filed by human rights activists, through Asma Jahangir, alleged that the ADSJ used his influence “to cover up a crime or to brush aside an incident that may or may not have occurred”.

To prove the allegation, the petition points out that on Jan 3, ADSJ Raja Asif Mehmood granted pre-arrest bail to his colleague Khurram Ali Khan’s wife. The same day, ADSJ Atta Rabbani ordered the recovery of the child from the Benazir Bhutto Women Crisis Centre in a hasty manner and handed her over to Mohammad Azam and Nusrat Bibi, the couple purporting to be her parents, without any proper investigation, which was “illegal and smacked of malafide intentions”.

Both judges of Islamabad’s subordinate judiciary issued the orders after the couple hurriedly submitted compromise deeds, absolving the ADSJ and his wife of culpability in the matter, before the courts.

But the Supreme Court observed that the child’s parents could have not compromised over the fundamental rights of their minor child.

The advocate general of Islamabad told the court on Friday that a medical board consisting of doctors from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) had been constituted by the Islamabad district magistrate and that Tayyaba would be examined soon after her recovery.

Our correspondents add from Faisalabad and Toba Tek Singh: Kausar Bibi, a resident of Kamalia’s Chak Kot Karam Kathian, had spoken to reporters at the Kamalia Press Club before leaving for Islamabad, where she claimed that Tayyaba was actually her daughter, Sana, whose father had passed away five months ago.

She claimed that she and her late husband Nawaz had Sana employed as a domestic maid in a house in Faisalabad’s Shadman Town in January 2015, but she had disappeared from there soon afterwards.

She claimed that police initially refused to register a kidnapping case, but were compelled to do so after she approached the Lahore High Court. However, she insisted that police had done nothing to recover her daughter and quashed the court-ordered FIR without informing her.

Separately, a contingent of Islamabad police raided a house in Chak 380-GB, Jaranwala, in search of Nadra, a woman who had allegedly arranged a job for Tayyaba. Although the woman in question was not home at the time, police arrested her son.

His wife, Arshad Bibi, told reporters after the fact that Nadra had been missing from home since Tayyaba’s case hit the news. She insisted her husband was innocent, adding that they were still in shock over the whole matter.

Another raid was carried out on the residence of Pathana Bibi, who is said to be Tayyaba’s aunt. However, she and her family were not at home at the time and it was said that they had gone to Islamabad when Tayyaba’s case made headlines.

Locals said that Tayyaba was the daughter of Mohammad Azam – the man who originally claimed to be the abused maid’s father – and that he had another daughter, six-year-old Mussarat.

According to the concerned UC secretary, Riaz Hussain, Mussarat’s birth was registered with the UC, but no record of Tayyaba’s birth was available there.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2017