Brother of Slain Boy Put Under Protective Care

The younger brother of an 11-year-old boy whose dismembered body was found in a trash dumpster in Hacienda Heights was held in protective custody Thursday as a key witness in a puzzling murder case complicated by a bitter and long-running custody fight between the children’s parents.

Three days after the discovery of the body of Raheed Parwez, a seventh-grader at Mesa Robles Junior High School, court records revealed accusations by the dead child’s father, Dr. Khalid Parwez, that his former wife had “revelations from God” that her children would be killed for living with him.

Cleared the Way

Relatives of the woman, Amtul Karim Parwez, however, said a psychiatric report had cleared the way for her to regain custody of her two children at a hearing set for this past Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. They said she was “totally confident” that she was going to regain custody. The hearing was canceled because of the boy’s death.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives, meanwhile, released only a few details of their investigation, saying they want to further question an uncle, Sattar Ahmed, 27, who reportedly may have been the last person seen with the boy while he was still alive. The uncle, investigators said, had recently rented an apartment at the complex where the boy’s body was found.

Deputies stressed that they had already talked to Ahmed once and released him but expressed “concern” that he had not been seen since his initial questioning.

As detectives questioned relatives on both sides of the Parwez family, Nabeel Parwez, 7, told authorities that he last saw his brother getting into a “blue car” Monday morning in front of school after being dropped off by neighbors. Deputies placed the boy in protective custody over his father’s protests.

According to relatives and neighbors, Nabeel had turned around to wave goodby to his brother and saw him getting into a car similar to one owned by his uncle. Other children in the car said they thought the driver was Ahmed, who has been living with Khalid Parwez and the physician’s second wife in Hacienda Heights in recent months.

Against the charges and countercharges of the bitter custody fight between the parents of the two children, there was no comment from deputies as to whether any relative is a possible suspect.

Nor did deputies respond to questions as to whether they are exploring the possibility that a stranger might have enticed Raheed into a car and later killed him.

Court documents revealed that Superior Court Judge Frances Rothschild had granted custody of both children to their father last year after allegations that the mother was mentally unstable and possibly dangerous to her two sons.

In addition, the judge imposed strict visitation rules on Amtul Karim Parwez, limiting her to visits every other weekend in the company of another relative.

In a declaration made Oct. 22 in advance of the actual custody hearing, Khalid Parwez, a native of Pakistan who practices medicine as a gynecologist for Kaiser Permanente, charged that his former wife had made alarming statements about the fate of her children.

“Amtul continues to have ‘revelations’ in which she believes she receives instructions from God, as well as prophecies,” he declared. “She recently informed me that God revealed to her that Raheed and Nabeel were drowned in a gutter. She could not help them because this was a divine punishment for the children because they continued to live with me.

“Amtul has also informed me that she has received a divine revelation that she will have full custody of the children, and that I will be destroyed and killed,” Parwez said.

Responding to the court allegations, relatives of Amtul Karim Parwez, a resident of Torrance, said Thursday that she had been “framed” by her former husband, and that a psychiatric report on her mental condition prepared for Wednesday’s scheduled custody hearing would have given her a good chance of regaining custody.

“The psychiatrist would have testified Wednesday that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this woman,” said Amtul Karim Parwez’s attorney, Phillip Kelly. “She was confident she was going to get those boys back, and she was in good spirits about it.”

According to Kelly and relatives, the Parwez marriage was prearranged in their native Pakistan. In that country, according to an uncle of Amtul Karim Parwez, they were members of a persecuted religious group that broke from the mainstream Muslim teachings and predicts the coming of a messiah. They immigrated to the United States to escape religious persecution, the uncle said.

“They were members of the Ahmedia Movement, a religious cult in Pakistan that is probably about as eccentric as the Moonies are here,” said the uncle, Dr. Charles Nasem, chief executive officer of the U.S.-Pakistan Alliance, a nonprofit organization in Washington. “They have both remained in the group in the United States.

“He would beat her and the children and say she had to accept it because of their religion. He was brainwashing her.”

Khalid Parwez could not be reached Thursday. His lawyer, Valerie H. Colb, said she had no comment on any aspect of the case.

Los Angeles County coroner’s spokesman Bob Dambacher reported Thursday that strangulation was the cause of death for Raheed, an indication that he was already dead before his body was mutilated.