Manawan attack: LHC seeks report from trial court

The trial court had dropped terrorism charges against Hijratullah

LAHORE: A division bench of Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday issued notice to the trial court for dropping terrorism charges against Hijratullah, a man sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for his role in the Manawan training school attack.

LHC had earlier taken suo motu action over the dismissal of a case against Hijratullah. An anti-terrorism court judge had declared insufficient the evidence presented by the prosecution against him and dropped Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act. However, he was not released as he had already been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for possession of weapons.



Appearing before the court on Monday, Additional Prosecutor General Abdul Samad submitted that the anti-terrorism court had absolved Hijratullah of the charge of carrying a dagger at the time of his arrest. “On March 30, 2009, security forces had arrested Hijratullah near the training school and seized a hand-grenade, a dagger and some papers from his possession,” he said.

The court directed the trial court to submit a report in two weeks.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 23^rd, 2015.