For Yousuf*, it was the most heart-breaking thing to do, to narrate in detail how his then nine-year-old old son had been confined, assaulted, tortured and sexually abused in 2016. What made filing the complaint tougher was that one of the two people accused in these ghastly crimes was Yousuf’s wife and the child's mother, Fathima*, who was complicit in what the child was subjected to at the hands of a faith healer, referred to as a 'tantric' in the complaint, Faiyaz Mehmood Ansari. But almost four years after the complaint, Yousuf and his son have got justice.
A Metropolitan sessions court in Hyderabad awarded 13 years imprisonment to a 36-year-old Fathima on Wednesday after she was found guilty in aiding and being complicit in the sexual abuse, exploitation and torture of her minor son by Faiyaz (38), who has been given two life convictions and 10 years of imprisonment.
The complaint was filed by Yousuf September 2016, when he came to know of the abuse while he was visiting his family in Hyderabad for a festival.
Yousuf was working in Kuwait at the time, and his wife was living along with their son, Zubair*, and two younger daughters in Hyderabad. In his complaint, Yousuf said that he learnt from Zubair about Fathima’s extra marital relationship with Faiyaz; and the subsequent abuse and torture the minor was subjected to by the convicted duo for keeping him quiet about it.
Faiyaz was charged under sections 307 (attempt to murder), 377 (unnatural offences), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 497 (adultery), 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. Fathima was convicted for attempt to murder, punishment for wrongful confinement and criminal intimidation.
The abuse
Yousuf said that he and Fathima had married in 2006 and lived with their children in Kuwait till 2013. Thereafter, she moved along with the children to Pahadi Shareef in old Hyderabad, while Yousuf stayed in Kuwait, his complaint said. When he was visiting them in 2016, they were all at his mother’s house for Bakrid. However, when he told Fathima to take the children back to the Pahadi Shareef house so they could study, Zubair’s became very upset.
“My son got depressed, started weeping and shivering and declined to go,” Yousuf said in his complaint to Kanchanbagh police.
Upon questioning, the child revealed to his father his mother’s relationship with Faiyaz, the faith healer. Faiyaz got acquainted with Fathima after Yousuf’s brother-in-law introduced them, claiming that Fathima and her son were having a “spiritual problem”, Yousuf’s complaint said.
According to Yousuf, Zubair told him that Faiyaz started visiting their Pahadi Shareef house to be with Fathima, who would send the children away or lock them in a room when Faiyaz came.
However, when Zubair questioned his mother about Faiyaz, he and Fathima started abusing the child mentally, physically and sexually to keep him quiet, Yousuf’s complaint stated. Zubair also showed Yousuf videos of the same in Fathima’s phone, which Yousuf copied into a pen drive. According to Yousuf, the convicted duo planned to ultimately kill the child.
Yousuf also told TNM that for about three months, Faiyaz and Fathima took Zubair to the former’s house in Hafeez Baba Nagar and kept him there for three months. According to the complaint, the child was tortured in many ways including stabbing with needles, binding him, biting, feeding him some form of ‘poison’ to induce loose motions or vomiting, pouring boiling water and hot wax on his private parts, and sexual assault. These brutalities were done in Fathima’s presence, who also filmed them in order to threaten the survivor and his siblings.
Yousuf has now moved to Hyderabad and his son lives with him. “Sometimes, Zubair still has nightmares and he wakes suddenly from sleep due to the trauma,” he said.
*Names changed