The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Tuesday indicted Additional District and Sessions Judge Raja Khurram and his wife Maheen Zafar in the torture case of 10-year-old maid Tayyaba. A single-member bench comprising Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kiyani while dismissing the request of Additional District and Sessions Judge Raja Khurram and his wife Maheen Zafar, also rejected the compromise notice submitted by Tayyaba's parents who had declared the charges levelled against the employers as false.

Tayyaba's parents told the court that the case filed against the couple is false because they did not torture their daughter. They had submitted a compromise notice in the court. They had told the court they did not want to pursue the case further. Whereby, the court asked police to submit a response on the case by May 5.

The minor girl whose face and hands bore torture marks had initially denied being beaten by her employers. She had told police that she got a wound to her eye after falling from the stairs, while her hand burnt accidentally. However, the girl narrated her ordeal after being politely enquired by a female magistrate later. She told the magistrate she was beaten and her hand was burnt on the stove for losing a broom.

But the matter had taken a turn when it was settled out of the court. The Chief Justice of Pakistan took suo motu notice of the case, but the child and her father had mysteriously disappeared then. After the Supreme Court ordered the child be produced in the court, police sprang into action. Tayyaba was then found from the suburbs of Islamabad.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017