KARACHI: Police on Sunday registered a murder and rape case against the employers of a young maid who was found hanged in their Defence Housing Authority house on Saturday morning.

The case was registered following a protest by the relatives of the girl outside the police station concerned and the Karachi Press Club, which was highlighted by the media, officials said.

A 17-year-old domestic servant was found hanged inside the bungalow of her employers in DHA Phase-V on Saturday morning.

Initially, the police were treating it as a suicide case as the deceased’s father had also not levelled any allegation against the employers. However, the situation took a turn when over two dozen relatives of the girl carrying her coffin staged a protest demonstration outside the Gizri police station on late Saturday night.

On Sunday, the Gizri police registered an FIR (266/2017) against the employer couple under Sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 376 (punishment for rape) of the Pakistan Penal Code on a complaint of the deceased’s mother.

“The police have registered a murder and rape case against the employer couple as the family insisted on it,” said Karachi-South SSP Javed Akbar Riaz.

He said the police had no objections to the registration of the FIR as it should be based on some facts.

On Saturday morning, the girl’s father in his statement to the police did not level any allegation.

The post-mortem examination carried out by a lady doctor at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre also called it a suicide as there were no injury marks on her body.

The senior officer said so far no one had been arrested.

“The police will conduct investigation and decide the case on merit,” added the officer.

“The family had levelled allegation of rape against the wife of the employer as well,” the South SSP added.

Earlier, on Sunday afternoon, around two dozen people, including women and children, held a demonstration outside the KPC, demanding registration of a murder FIR.

They carried flags of the Pakistan Peoples Party and banners inscribed with slogans for removal of the Gizri SHO, etc.

Talking to the media on this occasion a maternal grandfather of the deceased, said that the maid had been working at the bungalow for the past two and half years.

Replying to a question about the police claim that it was a suicide, the man said: “Why would she commit suicide?”

He claimed that the employer couple had given Rs11,000 and a mobile phone to the maid.

She also made a phone call to her family on Friday at around 11pm saying that she was going on picnic on Saturday morning.

However, at around 10am on Saturday, the house owner made a phone call to the family asking the girl’s father and mother to meet him saying that ‘something’ had happened. However, when the parents arrived, they were told that their daughter had committed suicide.

He said that the parents were not allowed to see their daughter’s body inside the mortuary. Instead, the police just took a ‘signature’ of the girl’s father on a ‘written paper’.

Tania Khaskheli murder case

Meanwhile, civil society organisations on Sunday afternoon held a protest demonstration outside the Karachi Press Club against the recent killing of matriculate girl Tania Khaskheli, who was gunned down by a local influential person in the home constituency of the Sindh chief minister reportedly over refusal of a marriage proposal.

Ms Hoorunisa, the leader of women organisation Sindhiani Tehrik, Anis Haroon of the Aurat Foundation and others talking to the media demanded arrest of the culprits involved in the murder.

They also demanded ban on jirgas, elimination of cruel practice of honour killing and forced conversion of faith in certain parts of Sindh.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2017