A teenage girl, quite possibly in the throes of rebellion against all things that are parental, lies in critical condition at Toronto's Hospital For Sick Children and police have taken a 57-year-old, believed to be her father, into custody. UPDATE
UPDATE: See above linked article; murder charges have now be laid.
Police believe that 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez, a grade 11 student who lives in Mississauga, Ontario, was strangled by a man believed to be her father after an ongoing argument about Aqsa not wanting to wear a hijab, the traditional Islamic headscarf worn by some Islamic women. At this point, Aqsa's condition is so grave that police have not charged the man yet because they don't know whether to charge him with attempted murder or murder.
This morning around
7:55 am, police received and then responded to a 911 call from the home of Muhammad Parvez, a Mississauga cab driver. A man called in from the Parvez home and told Peel police that he had just killed his daughter. It is being reported in the
National Post that when authorities arrived at the home, paramedics found Aqsa lying on the floor without any vital signs.
Aqsa's friends at Applewood Heights High School say she had been threatened by her very religious family on several occasions. Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson who has known Aqsa since starting high school said:
She got threatened by her father and her brother. He said that if she leaves, he would kill her.
It is being reported that Aqsa had left the family home over a week ago because the fights had become so bad and she had only gone back to get some personal items. Friend Krista Garbutt says:
She was going back, but just to get her stuff. She was scared to go home, but she had to get her clothes and stuff.
Dominiquia says that Aqsa and her father have been fighting for more than a year because he imposed restrictions on her movements and made her wear a hijab at all times.
She wanted to go out with her friends, hang out and just be like a normal person. “But he was always trying to control her ... he wouldn’t let her go out or do anything.
A cab driver at Mississauga's Blue and White Taxi, where the accused works, told the Post:
He was Muslim and very devout, very observant. “He was always stopping to take breaks and pray: three, four times a day.
It is being reported that the victim's brother, who's name is Muhammad as well, works as a cab driver and lives with his wife and at least one child in the family home. In fact, neighbors say that around 11 people live in the home and police have confirmed that there were other people there at the time of the attack.
Another friend of Aqsa's, Ebonie Mitchell, summed it up in a typically teenage way:
She just wanted to dress like we do. Last year she wore like the Islamic stuff and everything, the hijab, and this year she's all Western. She just wanted to look like everyone else. And I guess her dad had a problem with that.
