‘Possessed’ housemaid leaves Bahrain family in a tizzy

Manama : When Mohammed (name changed) hired a maid to look after his two kids, he introduced her to them as their ‘nanny’ and a new family member. But he never thought even in his wildest dreams that the Asian housemaid would turn out to be their nightmare. The 33-year-old maid, allegedly possessed, one day started to behave bizarrely. With bloodshot eyes and speaking in a man’s voice, the woman tried to attack her sponsor with a kitchen knife.

Speaking to DT News, Mohammed, the father of two daughters, aged two and three, said the maid joined his family over a year ago. 

“Her behaviour has oddly changed recently, unveiling a demonic personality within her,” he said. 

Mohammed said that the woman was considered a family member since she arrived at their home, adding that she was given all her rights and privacy she required.

However, he claimed that the woman’s behaviour towards his children had changed recently, as she became more violent even with the children of family friends, who eventually complained to him and his wife.

“By the last week of February, we confronted her about beating the kids. She denied, even though we caught her red-handed shoving one of our friend’s toddlers. My wife then decided to punish her by taking away her smartphone.

“After her phone was taken away, she behaved strangely for almost an hour. She walked into the main hall of the house in a manner that I have never witnessed before. Her eyes were bloodshot, her head was centered on her chest as if her neck was broken, she had a devilish smile and spoke in a male voice.

“Luckily, my wife and the kids weren’t present when this happened. The woman slowly walked into the kitchen and pulled out the biggest knife out of the drawer and started walking towards me."

Mohammed jumped out of his seat and locked the woman in the kitchen and then informed the police. Before the police arrived, Mohammed managed to snatch the knife from the maid’s hand. “Her body was stiff like wood, but she was strangely very calm. She also spoke English in a man’s voice,” he said.

“This is the first time she spoke in English since she started working for us. She demanded cigarettes and coffee. She was also speaking some gibberish and writing strangely on a piece of paper. Besides, she walked and sat in a robot-like movement, while only looking straight in one direction, mostly against the wall."

When the police arrived, the woman was in the same ‘demonic’ form, but she didn’t resist arrest. Mohammed said at least three police jeeps were sent to arrest the woman, in case she became violent.

She was kept at the Khamis police station for almost two weeks, until formal procedures were completed and was deported last week. Mohammed said the woman came back to her normal state within less than 24 hours.

“She claimed that she didn’t know what was going on with her. Even the social specialist at the police station told us that the woman was possessed,” he said. 

Mohammed’s wife said she felt suspicious of the maid when she was recruited, as her profile showed that she had brief stints with three different families in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. 

“She must have done something similar there. But we don’t know as there’s no joint database for domestic workers among the GCC countries. A housemaid could commit a crime in one GCC country and then apply for recruitment next month in a neighbouring country,” she said.

Later, while going through the woman’s phone, the family was shocked to find that she had intimate relationships with strange men in Bahrain and abroad. They also claimed that she had been communicating with sorcerers in her homeland.

“When we translated some of the conversations in her WhatsApp, we found that the woman was sending money to at least two sorcerers in her homeland, in return of rituals and salvation, as mentioned in the conversations,” the wife added.

Caption : The maid