Trust deficit: Compromise between Lahori, complainant’s family falls apart

The court has given his counsel five days to appeal for another compromise.

LAHORE: The Damocles sword once again hangs over Ikramul Haq alias Lahori and two other members of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi as a compromise to exonerate two Shiites, also on death row, in their stead apparently fell apart. The court has given Lahori’s counsel five days to file another application for a compromise before the Lahore High Court.

According to the complainant, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) failed to record statements to exonerate two Shiites sentenced for murdering a member of the LJ in 1992 in Jhang.

On Tuesday, Faisalabad Anti Terrorism Court Judge Raja Parvaiz Akhtar dismissed the appeal for a compromise and issued black warrants for Lahori. He is now scheduled to be hanged at the Lahore Central Jail on January 17.

Ghulam Mustafa Mangan, counsel for Lahori, told The Express Tribune that three heirs of Nayyer Abbas, one of the six people Lahori murdered in 1992, had agreed to record statements to exonerate Lahori. However, they failed to turn up in court on Tuesday and record their statements before the judge. This is why the court dismissed the appeal, Mangan said.

He said they would file another application for a compromise at the LHC on Wednesday (today).

Altaf Hussain Shah, the complainant in the FIR against Lahori, told The Express Tribune that they (Shiites) had promised to record statements to forgive Lahori and two other members of LJ, Sarwar and Khalil, for killing six Shiites including a six-month-old baby in Jhang in 1992. In return, Shah said, LJ members had promised to forgive Syed Ishaq Shah alias Saqi and Liaqat Hussain Shah, two Shiites on death row. An FIR against Saqi and Hussain Shah was registered in 1992 at the Jhang Saddar police station for murdering Mukhtar Ahmad, a member of the LJ. The deceased’s son, Muhammad Asif, had filed the complaint. Section 7 of the Anti Terrorism Act was not added to the FIR against Saqi and Hussain Shah; it was added to the FIR against Lahori.

Three relatives of Nayyer Abbas had promised to record statements to forgive Lahori, Altaf Hussain Shah said. However, Ahmad’s relatives had not yet recorded statements forgiving Saqi and Hussain Shah, he said. “It seems that they are trying to dodge us,” he said. Ahmad’s family had even refused to sign the affidavits required before recording statements before the judge, Shah said. He said they had collected stamp papers for Ahmad’s family members to write the affidavits on but they left. “That’s when we realised that they were trying to con us,” said Shah.

Shah appeared in court and told the judge about the situation, upon which he dismissed the application. He said their application to release the Shiites, filed before an additional sessions judge in Jhang, would have been dismissed on Tuesday but the judge was on leave. He said the hearing would take place on Wednesday (today).

“We still want a settlement,” Shah said. “We just need a guarantee that the LJ members will not breach our trust.”

Earlier, Lahori was scheduled to be executed on January 8 at 6:30am. The execution was stayed.  The superintendent of the Lahore Central Jail wrote, “Lahori was on the gallows to be executed at 6:30am. At 6:28am, we received information that Abbas’s mother, brother and complainant were at the prison gate.

After consulting Magistrate Imran Ishaque, the proceedings were stayed under Rule 105(iv) (amended) and 104 (ix) of the Pakistan Prison Rules, 1978. He said the legal heirs had said that they had forgiven Lahori in the name of Allah.”

Lahori was sentenced to death in an FIR registered under Sections 302, 148/149 of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of Anti Terrorism Act for the murder of Nayyer Abbas Qureshi, driver of Altaf Hussain Shah, the complainant in the FIR. Lahori, a resident of Shorkot Cantt, district Jhang, has no heirs. On April 26, 2003, an anti-terrorism court sentenced him to death.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2015.