Woman lynching: LHC converts death penalty to life term

Farzana's father and his accomplices killed her with bricks when she was coming to court to record a statement.

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has commuted the death sentence into life imprisonment for four men convicted of bludgeoning a woman outside the court three years ago.

Farzana Bibi, a resident of Nankana Sahib, had married Muhammad Iqbal against her family’s wishes. The family registered a kidnapping case against her husband but the woman filed a petition in the high court to get the case quashed.

The matter was fixed before a single bench on May 27, 2014 and Farzana was set to record her statement in favour of her husband.

While the defendants left the office of their counsel at Fane Road for the court, her father Azeem and his accomplices Mazhar, Zafar and Jahan Khan intercepted them and killed Farzana with bricks.

On Thursday, a division bench converted the death penalty of the men into life terms on the convicts’ appeal against their sentences. Their counsel had argued the men were convicted despite lack of evidence.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 28^th, 2017.