A harrowing tale of bonded labour, rape

A three-member bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Lahore district and sessions judge to probe the accusations made by a woman who gave a blow-by-blow account of the ordeal she and her family experienced during 18-year captivity of an influential family in Gujranwala.

The bench comprises Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Muhammad Nawaz Abbasi and Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad.

Punjab Inspector-General Ziaul Hasan was also directed to provide protection to the victim and her family who managed to escape from their captors some time back.

The apex court took suo motu notice of an application filed by Zohra Bibi who alleged that she and her family members had been working in the poultry farms, cattle farms and agricultural lands of a Gujranwala-based powerful family of Faisal Khalid Cheema for the past 18 years in return for only two meals a day.

She said that her daughters, who were often sexually assaulted, worked as maidservants at Cheema’s place or in the houses of his relatives.

She said her 13-year-old daughter, Saadia Gul, was raped by a relative of the Cheema family. She said when she lodged a complaint with the police, the powerful family had her daughter badly beaten up by a local hooligan who also raped the girl.

She said the court could make her daughter undergo a medical check-up to determine if she had been raped.

She alleged Cheema and his brother gang-raped a minor girl, Samina, daughter of her brother-in-law, Faiz Ahmad. She added that another minor girl, Marya, was badly beaten up when she resisted Cheema. She said her other daughter, Nadia, was dragged away in front of her and raped by Cheema’s brother and his cousin in their room.

She recalled that her son was kidnapped nine years ago by Cheema who made the boy work as a servant at the house of his relative in Islamabad.

She said that while some members of her family managed to escape in Ramazan, others were still held in captivity by the Cheema family.

She said that when her brother-in-law lodged a complaint with the Gujranwala district and sessions judge, he was arrested by police on the premises of the court and later tortured by the Cheema family for 16 days in police custody.

She said that he was later arrested on theft charges and his bail petition was still pending with a local magistrate.

She said that her family member, Shaukat, told her outside the courtroom that he was under tremendous pressure from the Cheema family who still held in captivity his son, daughter-in-law and son-in-law.

However, Asif Khalid Cheema, son of Faisal Khalid Cheema, denied Zohra’s allegations.

The Supreme Court bench directed the Lahore district and sessions judge to complete the probe by Dec 11. They also directed the Gujranwala magistrate to decide Faiz’s bail application without being influenced by the Supreme Court proceedings.