ISLAMABAD, Jan 26: An advocate requested the Supreme Court on Wednesday to take suo motu notice of the rape and murder of a maid in Karachi, who succumbed to burn injuries on Sunday last.

Advocate Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta filed the plea seeking a direction to the Karachi police to produce the entire record of the case before the court. He has also requested the apex court to direct the trial court to decide the case within a month and take strict action against police officials if it is found that they had favoured the accused in the investigation.

The maid, Asiya, had suffered severe burns at a bungalow in Bahadarabad, Karachi, where she was working. In her statement, she had implicated her employer's son Yaseen Bawani in the incident.

The advocate said in the two-page application that intervention of the court was necessary as the incident was brutal and had created uncertainty among working women and society at large.

According to her statement, the accused wanted to rape her on Jan 9, 2004, but when she refused and slapped him, he sent three masked men to her servant quarters, who locked her in the bathroom and set her on fire.

The accused had already raped her on different occasions, the statement said. Asiya had recorded the statement before a doctor after regaining consciousness, which was later converted into an FIR.

FEHMIDA: The Supreme Court on Tuesday admitted for regular hearing an appeal of Dr Fehmida Mirza, a Pakistan People's Party MNA, against her disqualification from contesting the upcoming local government elections.