Housewife accused of beating maid brutally misses trial

Dubai: A housewife has been accused of brutally assaulting her maid and beating her repeatedly with an iron rod during the course of a month until she was permanently disabled.

The 34-year-old Emirati housewife, Q.M., was said to have started assaulting her Indian maid with an iron rod since she joined work and constantly beat her during Ramadan until the day she fell unconscious on the balcony in July.

Prosecutors accused the defendant of assaulting the maid and causing her 60 per cent permanent disability in her limbs in addition to other physical injuries.

The housewife did not appear before the Dubai Court of First Instance where she was scheduled to enter her plea on Tuesday.

Records said Q.M. was the one who had reported to the police that her maid had fallen down unconscious in the balcony.

The maid testified to prosecutors that the suspect hired her through a labour supply agency and she was responsible for house chores.

“I worked for her for nearly eight months and she did not pay me any salary. I lived with the suspect, her husband, five children and mother. She started beating me with the rod in Ramadan. She battered me on my back, head and limbs. She once pushed me hard and I banged my head against a closet. I was constantly bruised, injured and in pain. I had a heart surgery and an operation in my fractured arm during the time, when I was hospitalised for 75 days. I cannot use my right arm properly any more. The defendant constantly beat me because she alleged that I did not work properly. I did not complain to anyone that she constantly beat me … I was not able to contact the labour supply agency because I did not have a mobile phone to do so. When police came to the flat, they found me unconscious in the balcony. Q.M. had beaten me and locked me out in the balcony for two days where I was left injured, and unfed … my hands were so swollen that I could not open the balcony door,” the maid claimed.

A police lieutenant claimed to prosecutors that the suspect had initially reported to them that the maid had fallen.

“A police patrol and an ambulance car were dispatched to the flat. The maid was rushed to hospital at 1am and it was discovered that she had been brutally assaulted. She had fractures and injuries in her limbs and other parts of her body. Primary interrogations at the crime scene [the flat] revealed that the maid had been living in the balcony where we found leftover food, a sponge mattress and the maid’s clothes. At first the suspect claimed that the maid fell on her own before she retracted her statement and confessed that she beat her. The iron bar used to beat the maid was found in the flat. The defendant alleged that the maid worked hard during the first three month before she stopped working and asked to be sent back to India. Q.M. claimed during police questioning that she beat the maid after they failed to convince her to honour her labour contract,” he claimed. Presiding judge Shaikha Al Gefaili will hand out a ruling in absentia against Q.M. on October 27.