Prisoner’s wait for hearing ends in death

79-year-old inmate’s appeal pending for 14 years

ATTOCK:

An elderly prisoner whose appeal against a conviction had been pending before the Supreme Court for the last 14 years has died in a prison in Attock.

79-year-old Ashiq Hussain Shah died while incarcerated at District Jail, Attock, his son confirmed on Saturday.

Shah was arrested in November 12, 2009 over the double murder of a father and son in his village Chapri, in Attock’s Jand sub-district. Only a few days earlier, he was sitting outside his house when his son Nazakat had an altercation with another.

It led to blows, and the other man’s father – who would become the complainant – intervened. At some point, shots were fired by Shah. It fatally wounded the father, ruled a sessions court that gave him a 24-year prison term. The dying man also named Shah and his other son, Tajammal, responsible for his and his son’s murder.

Ashiq was sentenced the same year, while the Lahore High Court (LHC) upheld the sessions court’s verdict. His appeal against it was pending in the apex court.

Meanwhile, his son Tajammal would be an absconder for ten years before his arrest and conviction by a trial court in 2018. Like his father, the verdict was upheld by the LHC.

But he got a hearing in the Supreme Court, which overturned the verdict last year and ordered his immediate release.

It cited ‘major’ discrepancies in the medical reports and witness statements.

Tajammal says that his father had been a victim of a gross injustice.

He says the case was fabricated with the collusion of a former chairman of the union council and deputy superintendent of police who has since passed away. He said powerful forces were holding the law-and-order situation in Attock hostage while blaming the police for his father’s death.

He said this while to the media outside the District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital in Attock, where his father underwent a post-mortem. The son said that the family was against the post-mortem and it had been carried out at the court’s order.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2023.