LAHORE: A widow secured the recognition of her husband as ‘shaheed’ after an eight-year legal battle, overcoming opposition from the police department that disputed his entitlement. A division bench of the Lahore High Court, led by Justice Sultan Tanvir Ahmad, announced the verdict while hearing an intra-court appeal by the provincial government and other authorities.
The authorities had challenged a previous order by a single bench that granted the ‘shaheed’ status to the widow’s husband. The bench observed that the appellants failed to identify any intervening cause that broke the link between the injuries sustained and the death.
The court noted that the applicable rules do not distinguish between deaths occurring immediately after an incident and those after a delay. The judgment maintained that the medical board’s uncertainty could not negate the causation between injury and death.
According to case details, Muhammad Saifullah, the respondent’s husband, was injured in a crossfire with robbers on February 15, 2009, during which he sustained severe bullet wounds. Despite medical treatment, including removal of a kidney, he passed away on May 8, 2017, at District Headquarters Hospital, Okara.
Following his death, his widow applied to the police department for ‘shaheed’ status, but after facing rejection, she filed a constitutional petition in court. The court granted the petition in October 2022, a decision the authorities later contested through an intra-court appeal.
The division bench upheld the widow’s stance, rejecting the government’s appeal and affirming Muhammad Saifullah’s recognition as a martyr.
