May 22, 2024
By Rashid Laghari
HYDERABAD
On May 12, when Heera Bheel received a phone call informing him that his 15-year-old daughter Paria had committed suicide, the ground beneath his feet seemed to disappear.
A resident of Tando Haider, a small town near Hyderabad, Heera had sent his daughter Paria Bheel for around nine months, to work in Karachi in a bungalow located in Defence Housing Authority’s Khayaban-e-Bukhari.
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“I had sent her to work,” he says, speaking to Voicepk.net, while holding a banner that shows the community’s stance of protest regarding the incident. “There she was raped and murdered. Paria is not just my daughter, she is the daughter of this land (Sindh). I have appealed to the authorities, to the Chief Minister too, to apprehend her killers.” Heera says that he went to the High Court and to the police, and ensured that an FIR was lodged.
A heart broken Maya Bheel, mother of Paria, has to hold back her tears as she mentions her.
“Paria was my only daughter, she was my precious one, my darling. We sent her to Karachi for domestic work, but she brutally raped and killed,” she chokes. “They told me not to worry, that they would treat her like their own daughter, but what did they do instead? They raped her and killed her.” Maya is sitting on a rug on the ground of their home, along with the other women of the community, all of them concerned with the way the young girl was assaulted.
“We have demanded the government and the courts that the killers and rapists of my only daughter must be arrested and justice should be given. This mother must see her daughter get justice.”
The girl had been employed by house owner, and employer, Inayat Khan Pathan along with his son Dr Shehroze Khan Pathan. Heera had been told that the girl had been found hanging from a ceiling fan. But Heera does not believe it. He says she sounded fine enough a day ago over the phone.
“They raped and killed her, and made it look like a suicide,” he insists. “Instead of handing over her body to us, we were called to Jinnah Hospital, where her body was being kept. A daughter can’t do anything. The owners of the bungalow have done injustice by killing the daughter.
Paria’s grandfather Shankar Bheel says that Pariya had been working as a domestic worker and living there. “She was killed on May 12, and when we went to get her body from the hospital, we found out that she had been brutally sexually assaulted and raped. There were marks of violence on her thighs
A case of Paria’s murder has been registered against Inayat Khan and Shehroze Khan under Section 302 in Karachi’s Darakhshan police station. According to Paria’s family, there must be complete justice given in their daughter’s and the perpetrators must be severely punished and that there must be protection given to domestic workers.
Earlier, Sindh Home Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar expressed his sorrow over the incident and ordered DIG South to give him a detailed inquiry report. The final post mortem report has not yet been completed due to pending chemical examination results.