Minor domestic worker killed for stealing food from refrigerator: police

LAHORE: Two underage domestic workers were brutally beaten up in the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) on Tuesday for stealing food from a refrigerator and as a result of which 11-year-old Kamran succumbed to the injuries while his seven-year-old brother Rizwan was seriously injured.

Police said that the two minors were from Karachi and had been working for a year in the house of a citizen named Nasrullah.

According to the police, both the children were tortured by the employer’s family and were transferred to a local hospital only after their conditions had deteriorated. They said the hospital administration alerted police when doctors noticed that the condition of Kamran was critical.

The police said that Kamran succumbed to his injuries before the arrival of a police party while his brother Rizwan was being treated at the hospital.

Meanwhile, the police registered an FIR against five suspects and arrested three accused, including the couple who allegedly tortured and killed the minor. They said that Nasrullah, his wife Shabana and son Mahmood have been detained by the police on charges of torture, while his other son Abul Hassan and daughter-in-law Hina managed to escape and are currently being pursued by the police.

According to the statement given to the police by the accused, the minors were tortured for allegedly “eating things out of the fridge”. The police said that initial investigation revealed that the phone numbers provided by the employers to the parents of the children were also switched off so that they could not be contacted with their kids.

Meanwhile, the police sent the corpse of Kamran to mortuary for autopsy and alerted his family members.

In addition, Punjab IGP Rao Sardar Ali Khan has taken notice of the incident and sought a detailed inquiry report from the CCPO.

He said the perpetrators of child abuse do not deserve any concession and those involved in such incidents would be punished. He said that senior police officers visited the spot soon after the incident and the Lahore police have lodged an FIR against five suspects of whom three persons, including a woman, have been arrested.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022