Kot Radha Kishan tragedy: ATC to frame charges against 59

ATC Judge Haroon Latif sends ten other accused on judicial remand

LAHORE:

An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) distributed case copies among 59 accused persons and fixed January 2 for framing charges for burning alive a Christian couple in a brick kiln at Kot Radha Kishan.

Moreover, ATC Judge Haroon Latif sent ten other accused on judicial remand, as the police have not produced challans against them.

On Wednesday, Kot Radha Kishan Police produced accused including brick kiln owner Yousaf Gujjar, Tajammul Hussain, Arslan, Muhammad Aslam, Allah Rakha, Haris Bashir, Waqas Bashir, Attique and others before the court where all the accused refused to accept charges levelled against
them by police.

After which the court indicted them. The court, after distributing copies of the case record among 59 accused persons, adjourned the hearing till January 2.

The court has also summoned prosecution witnesses for the next hearing. As per details of the incident Shama, 24, and Shahzad, 28, were burnt alive in a kiln in Chak 59, Kot Radha Kishan, an area located on the outskirts of Kasur.

The couple used to earn their livelihood by working at a brick-kiln for the last one decade. On November 3, when the couple arrived at the kiln to work, the owner of the kiln asked them to return the money they had borrowed from him as advance. However, at their failure to pay back the advance, the owner locked them up in a room.

Later, in the morning of November 4, a local cleric made announcements through the mosque loudspeaker that he had heard that a Christian woman had desecrated the Holy Quran. After the announcement, hundreds of native villagers gathered at the kiln. They pulled out the couple from the room, tortured them brutally and threw them into the kiln, burning them alive.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2014.