Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry on Wednesday stated that it is the state’s duty to bring high-profile cases of Usman Mirza, Sharukh Jatoi and the Lahore-Sialkot motorway gang-rape to a logical conclusion.
He further stated that such cases are more like “challenges for the justice system”
The minister took to his Twitter to question as to “why aren’t these cases being heard on the daily basis,” while adding that “the prosecution and the court should fulfil their responsibility”
It is pertinent to note that the minister’s statement came as a response to a tweet of media person Maria Memon in which she said the state should be the plaintiff in such cases because “the whole society has been psychologically affected by the terror of this incident!”
Memon was referring to the report published yesterday, which mentioned that the victims in the couple harassment case retracted their statement against the accused, including the main suspect Usman Mirza.
As per the details, the couple in their written affidavit told the trial court that they did not want to pursue the case against Mirza and co-accused Hafiz Ataur Rehman, Adaras Qayyum Butt, Rehan, Umar Bilal Marwat, Mohib Bangash and Farhan Shaheen.
On the retraction of the statement, journalist Rauf Klasra claimed in a tweet that according to police sources, a deal of more than Rs10m was made for reconciliation between the defendant and the prosecution.
“All the hard work of the police has been turned upside down,” he added.
It is pertinent to note that in July last year, the accused had been booked and charge-sheeted after they were arrested for stripping the couple naked, torturing them in Sector E-11 of Islamabad and later uploading their video on social media.
Separately, on Monday it was reported that Shahrukh Jatoi, the murder convict of the 2012 Shahzeb murder case, was living a “lavish life” on the upper floor of a little-known private hospital in Karachi’s Gizri area on the pretext of medical treatment.
His presence at the hospital was only known through a leaked video. Following the release of the video, the jail authorities moved Shahrukh back to the prison.
Home department sources stated that a senior official of the Sindh government played a role in transferring the murder convict from prison to hospital under the guise of medical treatment.
