The Commission for Investigation and Prosecution on Saturday questioned the father and stepmother of the seven-year-old girl Kulthoum over her death on Thursday. Both are charged with torturing the girl to death. The case was referred to the commission by the Makkah Police. The girl's mother, identified only as Fatima, gave her testimony and demanded stiffest penalties against those involved in her daughter's death. She said she had been separated from her husband – the girl's father – for over two years which also separated her from her daughter. Sources expect the case to be referred to the Shariah Court. The forensic doctor did an autopsy on the girl's body on Saturday and the final report is expected on Tuesday. The girl's body is still in King Faisal Specialist Hospital's morgue while the girl's father and stepmother are cooling their heels behind bars. Maj. Abdul Mohsin Al-Maiman, spokesperson of Makkah Police, said it was clear that Kulthoum had been severely beaten resulting in bruises and internal bleeding, according to the report issued by the Maternity and Children's Hospital in Makkah. Immediately, the girl's father and stepmother were arrested and taken into custody pending investigations. Social circles consider repeated incidents of family violence as ugly crimes. Dr. Muhammad Shiraz, a sociologist at Umm Al-Qura University, called for urgent laws to punish the perpetrators of family violence. This, he said, not only harms the individual, but causes the whole society to bleed. Sheikh Saleh Al-Sadlan, member of the Board of Senior Ulema, said such practices are forbidden in Islam and there is no acceptable justification for the torture of Kulthoum whatever her crime was. The actual reasons behind these types of crime, he said, are many: weak religious deterrent, lack of proper upbringing, moral decadence and the absence of a strong father who as head of the family guides the other family members. Also, the stepmother is usually devoid of any feeling of motherhood toward her stepchildren.
