ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday pronounced verdict of suo motu notice taken by former chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar over release of culprit Shah Hussain who stabbed 23 times on Khadija Siddiqui in May 2016.
A three-member bench of the apex court led by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa overturned release orders of the Lahore High Court (LHC) regarding Shah Hussain. The accused Shah Hussain was also produced before the top court in Wednesday’s hearing.
Lawyer of victim Khadija Siddiqui told the SC bench that the high court did not review complete evidences and aspects of the case. Justice Khosa remarked that the apex court wanted to review the high court’s verdict whether it was given in accordance with the evidences or not.
During the hearing, Justice Khosa questioned why Hussain was nominated in the case after five days despite Khadija and the accused was classfellows.
The lawyer responded that Khadija was unconscious after the attack while she also refused to identify her doctor. CJP said Khadija did not received wound on front side of throat so she can talk. He added that word of high-profile was used for multiple times in the case whether the regulations changed in high-profile as compare to low-profile cases.
CJP raised another question over the reason behind the stab attack on Khadija, saying that the accused could attack the victim on some other place where nobody was presence while stabbing attempt was usually made over severe outrage. He added that the second reason behind such incident was being blackmailed from girl’s side but both of the reasons were not found in Khadija’s case.
CJP Khosa asked for DNA report of hairs recovered from vehicle, while Khadija’s lawyer answered that it was recommended to send hairs to forensic laboratory. However, the foreign lab officials said that they did not receive hair samples.
The Chief Justice said that they should be proud of Punjab Forensic Lab in Lahore as it is best lab in the region and second best forensic lab across the globe.
However, the top court declared the LHC’s verdict null and void after completion of arguments of lawyers and retained verdict of sessions court pronounced imprisonment of Shah Hussain for five years.
The culprit was immediately arrested by police and transferred to Secretariat police station.
