Nine months on Man languishes in jail due to court staff’s negligence

Ashiq Masih’s case could not be heard because his case file is missing

RAWALPINDI: Ashiq Masih is still behind bars, even after completing his jail term. He has been languishing in jail for the last nine months, even after escaping the gallows and completing the terms of his 20-year sentence. He now has to wait for “a few more weeks” to get out -- not due to his own fault, but because of lapses made at a lower court.

Ashiq, a native of Narowal district in Punjab, was convicted of murder but pardoned by his accusers a day before he was scheduled to be hanged in Adiala Jail on August 30, 2015. Following the pardon, jail officials wrote a letter to a district and sessions judge in Rawalpindi stating that a robbery case was still pending against him.

The robbery case was registered against him by the RA Bazaar police on January 17, 1994, but there has been no headway in the case since August last year as the case records have reportedly gone missing, due to which he has been kept in jail nine months beyond his sentence.

Details collected by The Express Tribune show that the case was assigned to Magistrate Waqar Mansoor Bariar by the district and sessions judge.

On May 31 this year, Masih was produced before the magistrate’s court, but the case could not be heard due to the unavailability of the relevant records. A senior court official informed the bench that they had been unable to find the case file. He said that the magistrate had asked the accused to file a bail-after-arrest petition to secure temporary release from jail.

Safdar Chaudhry, chairman of Rah-e-Nijat Ministry, a non-government organisation, said that Masih was arrested by the Golra Police on September 12, 1996. After his arrest, it was revealed that six other cases have already been registered against him, including a murder case in Narowal.

In 2002, a Narowal court sentenced Masih to death for the murder of his fiancé. As a result of a compromise last year, the victim’s family pardoned him before his execution date.

In the meantime, Masih was also convicted in five other cases and served those jail terms.

Chaudhry said that there was no reason to keep him in prison any longer if the case file was not available. He added that it was the duty of the court and the police to produce those records.

Advocate Raja Ikram Amin Minhas, a criminal law expert, said that blame should fall on the outdated recordkeeping procedures in use. He said that the prisoner could not be kept in jail if records were unavailable. He noted that the jail authorities could release the prisoner following orders from the court.

He added that if the state was bound by the constitution to protect the liberty of its citizens, Masih could not be kept in the jail simply because the record had gone missing.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2016.