ISLAMABAD, Jan 5: An eleven-year-old boy working as a domestic servant was found dead in the house of his employers under mysterious circumstances here on Thursday, police said.

The employers told the police that the boy, Shan Ali, committed suicide but the police registered a murder case against them and put them behind bars after circumstantial evidence and an autopsy belied their claim.

Police said Atya Al-Hussain informed them that her servant committed suicide by hanging himself in the house located at G-13 at around 10am.

The police reached the house and found the victim's body in the living room. However, instead of hanging the boy's body was found sitting on the knees with a curtain tied to the neck.

An autopsy conducted on the body at Pims suggested that the victim was strangled to death and there was no sign of hanging, sources said, adding: “A mark of 'O' was found around the neck instead of an 'inverted V' which is the sign of suicide by hanging.” The victim had died between 7am and 10am, according to the autopsy. No marks of injures were found on the body.

The boy's employer Mudassar Abbas, a manager at Nescom, told the police that he left the house for work at 8am in an official bus. At around 10am, his wife informed him about the incident on phone and in response he told her to inform her uncle and the police.

Police said Mr Abbas' wife Atya Al-Hussain used to wake up at around 10am and till then the house servant looked after their seven-month-old child.

On Thursday, she woke up after her child riding a walker started hitting the door of her bedroom. Later, she went to the living room and found the body of her servant hanging with the curtain; the police quoted her as saying.

The victim's family hailed from Jhang but a decade back they migrated to Islamabad and settled in Mehrabadi. Ali had been working with the couple for the last seven months against Rs4,000 monthly salary and lived in his employers' house.

After the autopsy, the police handed the body to his father Ghulam Shabbir. Later, the victim's family along with their relatives and residents of Mehrabadi brought the body to Ibn-i-Seena Road in front of the Pims emergency ward and blocked the road for over three hours, demanding arrest of the couple.

On the complaint of the victim's father, the police registered a murder case against the couple and arrested them.