Eight-year-old girl had allegedly
poured hot water on the head, neck and back side of the 14-year-old housemaid,
whose name was given as Mary Komule, on September 5 for not answering her in
time when she asked Mary to make her Indomie.
Acting on this information,
policemen and women attached to the Juvenile Welfare section of Iyaganku went
to the girl’s parents’ house at Olaniran Fagbemi Street, Joyce B area of Ibadan
immediately after receiving the information but was said to have been resisted
by the girl’s mother who reportedly told her gateman to inform the police that
she was not around.
It was further gathered that the
police officers spent close to four hours outside the gate and had prepared to
obtain a search warrant from a court when the woman’s lawyer came around and
persuaded her to follow the law enforcement agents.
In her statement to the police at
Iyaganku, Ewaoluwa claimed that she wanted to eat Indomie and informed the
housemaid, but she was busy cleaning the floor on which palm oil poured. The
housemaid, Mary, had reportedly put some water on the fire to further clean the
floor when she noticed the floor was still slippery.
Angered by the fact that her request
was not promptly attended to, the little girl had reportedly ordered Mary to
kneel down and put her hands behind her back, after which she tied them with a
scarf. She was said to have claimed that she first poured cold water on the
housemaid but when she saw that the teenager did not feel any pain, she took
the water the maid was boiling on the fire and poured it on the helpless girl,
right from the head to the back of her neck.
Writhing in pain, Mary had
reportedly robbed the scalded skin with her hands, resulting in the skin
peeling off. Though the girl’s mother was said to be away in Lagos when the
incident occurred, Ewaoluwa, when asked whether she was punished for her
misdeeds, told the police that her mother scolded her by asking her to ‘face
the wall’.
The mother of the girl who was
crying profusely as the crowd booed her and her daughter told the police that
she took Mary to a nearby chemist for treatment when she returned from her
journey and was informed of the occurrence. She also said that the girl had
been with her for about six moths, adding that she didn’t want to come out to
the police initially because she was scared.
However, the housemaid countered
her, saying that she was not taken anywhere for treatment and had been in pain
until the time of her rescue. Her burns were only dabbed with Gentian Violet
when Crime Features saw the girl at the police station. When asked why she
didn’t resist the abuse on her, Mary said her mistress had strictly warned her
not to touch the girl on any account.
Sources living around the home of
the girl’s parents told Crime Features that the housemaid had once attempted to
run away but was held back by people. Since then, they said, she had been under
close monitoring by her mistress. The gateman of the house also told the police
that he had only worked with the family for nine days before the incident but
had never seen the girl outside until that day.
Confirming the story, the Deputy
Commissioner of Police, Mr Clement Adoda said that the housemaid had been
handed over to the Ministry of Women Affairs in Oyo State while the NAPTIP had
also been contacted so that proper repatriation of the girl back to her country
could be effected. Mr Adoda added that the little suspect and her mother had
been granted bail while the case would be charged to court after the resumption
of the legal year.
No comments:
Post a Comment