Make a decision: SHC asks magistrate to conclude blackmailing case in four months

The suspect is accused of making an objectionable video of a girl at gunpoint.

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has directed the relevant judicial magistrate to conclude a trial where a suspect faces allegations of making an objectionable video of a girl and blackmailing her family.

Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar, while heading the bench on Tuesday, directed the Judicial Magistrate-XI, West, to try and conclude the trial within four months.

The direction came on a plea asking the court to quash the case against the suspect, claiming that the Surjani Town police have booked and arrested him in a false case.

The police had lodged a complaint in which a woman alleged that the suspect, Z*, barged into their house from the rooftop on September 20, 2013, when her daughter, S, was alone at home. "The suspect had a TT pistol in one hand and a bottle of acid in the other," the complainant told the police.

According to the complainant, the suspect forced her daughter to strip, threatening to throw acid on her face. Z then made a video of her and fled when her mother came home, according to the police report.

The prosecution added that the suspect later called the girl's family and asked them to give him Rs1.5 million and threatened to upload the video on the internet if they failed to do so.

An FIR, No. 517/2013, was registered under Sections 354, 506 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

On Tuesday, the suspect's wife approached the high court, claiming that the police had inserted Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 to the initial FIR, due to which the trial court gave his custody to the police. She claimed the case is false and should be quashed.

However, her arguments failed to persuade the judges.

*Names have been changed to protect identities

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2^nd, 2014.