A Pakistani man, who tortured two minor boys, was arrested after one of the children succumbed to his injuries.
Lahore Police said that the prime suspect Abul Hassan who was living in Defence Housing Authority (DHA) house tortured his domestic child workers as he wanted to marry their minor sister.
The accused was arrested on Friday in a raid carried out in the Bahawalpur district. The police also recovered a 7-year-old girl, who turned out to be the sister of the two children, Dawn reported.
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One of the children, 10-year-old Kamran, had succumbed to the injuries inflicted by the employers, while his younger sibling, Rizwan (6), was injured.
The investigations also revealed that Abul Hassan claimed to be a Pir (spiritual healer), and the children’s father Irfan, a resident of Hyderabad, Sindh, used to visit him.
Lahore Investigation DIG Kamran Adil said that the prime suspect Abul Hassan was himself a follower of a so-called spiritual healer living in Dera Ghazi Khan. He said Hassan had told Irfan that his Pir (in DG Khan) wanted him to marry an underage girl, the Dawn reported.
At this, Irfan showed his willingness to ‘sacrifice’ his minor daughter and handed the girl over to Hassan in a “spiritual ceremony” organised at the house of the prime suspect, the DIG said.
He said that these details were revealed when the police managed to get a recording of mobile phone conversations between Hassan and the man (Pir) living in DG Khan, the Dawn reported.
The DIG said the police actually came to know about the sister of the two boys through these phone call recordings.
The DIG said, “In the entire episode, the role of the children’s father was shocking as he neither contacted police to lodge a case against their employers nor pursued the investigation process.”
The children were tied with ropes in a room and subjected to severe torture using sharp-edged tools. They kept on beating them for many hours which led to the death of the elder child, he said, adding that the other members of the family including women were also present there.
The DIG further said that the police, on their own, moved the local magistrate, seeking orders for the postmortem examination of the deceased boy and permission for his burial. “We have traced the location of the children’s father who was staying somewhere in Hyderabad,” the police officer said.
A human trafficking case would also be lodged against the father for selling his minor daughter to Hassan, the DIG added.