Dubai // A drunk maid tried to stab a woman to death because she stole her boyfriend, a court heard.
During the alleged assault, the victim, also a maid, had chilli powder thrown in her face, was dragged by her hair, bitten and beaten.
The ordeal was so distressing that she fainted after managing to escape.
The Sri Lankan victim, N S, said that at about 5.30pm on April 2 she had returned to her building in Silicon Oasis when she met the defendant, a Nepalese maid, 28. “She followed me inside and started spraying my face and eyes with chilli pepper,” said the victim, 32.
The defendant, D P, and her accomplice, identified as N B and who is still at large, dragged the woman by her hair to the lift and took her to the eighth floor while beating her.
They then dragged her to the emergency exit and N B bit her on both arms and D P pulled out a long knife and stabbed her multiple times.
“I screamed for help but no one heard me, then I managed to escape to the seventh floor through the stairs and knocked on a door but no one opened up,” said the victim.
She finally managed to reach her apartment and locked herself inside, then called her sponsor before she fainted. She woke up to find policemen and rescuers entering the apartment.
“I told police that the defendant was not normal when she attacked me, she must have been drunk,” said the victim who was taken to Rashid Hospital.
Police found blood in the corridor as well as human hair from the victim’s head.
“I saw the victim on the floor bleeding heavily, her face and hair were filled with blood, she was also crying very hard,” said T A, a policeman.
Police then went to the defendant’s apartment in the building.
“We knocked on her door and when she opened, her clothes were stained with blood,” said T A, adding that she confessed she stabbed the victim because she stole her Pakistani boyfriend.
“She told me she intended to end her life, so therefore took a big knife from her kitchen and waited for the victim downstairs,” said T A.
Police found more blood in the lift as well as chilli powder.
Prosecutors said the defendant confessed during investigations to a charge of attempted murder.
D P denied attempted murder at the Dubai Criminal Court on Monday.
“Yes I did stab her but it was in a fight, and I did not mean to kill her or end her life,” she said.
She also faces a charge of drinking alcohol without a licence.
The next hearing will be on December 12.
salamir@thenational.ae
