A case has been filed against the wife of a civil judge in Islamabad for allegedly beating up a minor house help and keeping her confined against her will.
The case was filed by Manga Khan, the father of the victim, in Islamabad’s Humak police station.
The FIR, numbered 154/23, alleges that a child named Rizwana was employed at the house of civil judge Asim Hafeez as a househelp in Islamabad’s Zaraj housing society for Rs10,000 per month. Rizwana’s age has been mentioned as 13/14 in the FIR.
Manga Khan said that since the entire family lives in Sargodha he would occassionally speak to his daughter on the phone which was arranged by the judge’s wife.
However, when the family reached Islamabad on July 23 to meet their child they heard the sound of her crying.
The family went inside to find Rizwana crying in an injured state. Manga says there was a wound on the back side of Rizwana’s head while several smaller wounds, infected with insects, were also visible on her head.
He also told the police that both of Rizwana’s arms and legs had also sustained injuries, and a tooth was also broken. He said that both of her eyes and her nose were also swollen.
Manga said his wife inspected the child’s body to find marks on her back and small wounds all across her body as if somebody had tried to strange her. He also found Rizwana had broken ribs.
The father alleged that when he asked the daughter about her state, she said that the judge’s wife, Somia, regularly beat her with sticks and spoons. Rizwana also added that she had been confined against her will since her arrival in the house.
At the child’s pleading, Manga took her home to Sargodha. He first took Rizwana to District Headquarter Hospital’s emergency but the doctors referred her to Lahore.
The initial medical report said that Rizwana had 15 wounds on her body including a wound on the head. It also added that her internal organs had also sustained damage.
She is currently being treated in Lahore’s General Hospital where a 12-member board had been constituted under Dr Jodat Saleem.
She is currently in the surgical ICU.
While the FIR said that the parents found Rizwana in an injured state after hearing her crying when they visited, their initial version was different.
They had earlier claimed that the judge’s wife had beat her after accusing her of theft. When she got injured, the lady handed Rizwana over to her parents.
Meanhwile, an audio purportedly belonging to Judge Asim Hafeez emerged denying any wrong doing or knowledge of the case.
The audio clip said that the violence on the child was actually inflicted by his mother, not his wife. He also added that his wife’s jewelery was missing but she had not beaten the child.
He also said that the child, who had been employed in his house since December 2020, had recently swallowed some mud from a plant pot causing problems with her skin.
The judge said that he even had the child treated from Gujranwala and had given her medication. However, the child would reopen her wounds every few days. He also said he did not know about the wounds on her head as her head was always covered by a scarf.
He said that his wife had told him the child did not do much work, so they dropped her off at her parent’s house in Sargodha. He added that the child did not want to go back but they took her anyway.
The judge added that he was now going to Lahore himself and was praying for the child’s recovery.
