Challenged: MNA moves court against charges of rape
LHC magistrate says charge cannot be dropped at the investigation level.
RAWALPINDI:
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) MNA from Chakwal, Ayaz Amir, moved the Lahore High Court (LHC) asking that charges of rape levelled against him be dropped. Justice Ijaz Ahmed of LHC’s Rawalpindi bench will take up the petition on December 7.
The MNA was accused of raping a married 15-year-old girl, Tabasum Farooq, in Langa Village, Chakwal on May 22 and an FIR was registered against him, along with six other men, on September 8. All suspects, including the MNA, were charged with rape, abetment and criminal intimidation, while four of the accused men were charged of raping the teenage girl on several occasions. The victim has also nominated her husband, Muhammad Jamshaid, and his sister, Naseem Komal alias Simi, for helping with the crime.
The city police stated that there is no evidence to support the allegations against the MNA, but the judicial magistrate on November 12 turned down the plea of police to discharge him from the accusations.
The MNA, through his counsel Advocate Ilyas Siddiqi, has petitioned that he was not present in Chakwal at the time of the incident and prayed to the court to drop the charges levelled against him as the area police has already failed to collect any evidence against him. He termed the allegations baseless and politically motivated.
The judicial magistrate had observed that the charges could not be dropped at the investigation level by solely relying on the plea that the accused was in Lahore on the day of incident. The plea can be only determined at the trial stage by the court of a sessions judge, the magistrate remarked.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 5th, 2011.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) MNA from Chakwal, Ayaz Amir, moved the Lahore High Court (LHC) asking that charges of rape levelled against him be dropped. Justice Ijaz Ahmed of LHC’s Rawalpindi bench will take up the petition on December 7.
The MNA was accused of raping a married 15-year-old girl, Tabasum Farooq, in Langa Village, Chakwal on May 22 and an FIR was registered against him, along with six other men, on September 8. All suspects, including the MNA, were charged with rape, abetment and criminal intimidation, while four of the accused men were charged of raping the teenage girl on several occasions. The victim has also nominated her husband, Muhammad Jamshaid, and his sister, Naseem Komal alias Simi, for helping with the crime.
The city police stated that there is no evidence to support the allegations against the MNA, but the judicial magistrate on November 12 turned down the plea of police to discharge him from the accusations.
The MNA, through his counsel Advocate Ilyas Siddiqi, has petitioned that he was not present in Chakwal at the time of the incident and prayed to the court to drop the charges levelled against him as the area police has already failed to collect any evidence against him. He termed the allegations baseless and politically motivated.
The judicial magistrate had observed that the charges could not be dropped at the investigation level by solely relying on the plea that the accused was in Lahore on the day of incident. The plea can be only determined at the trial stage by the court of a sessions judge, the magistrate remarked.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 5th, 2011.