Khadija Siddiqui case: SC to take up review petition on Aug 8

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court will take up a petition seeking review of its ruling in the Khadija Siddiqui case on August 8, Thursday.

A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, will hear the petition filed by convict Shah Hussain who challenged the apex court’s Jan 23 decision of ordering his arrest and upholding five-year term awarded to him by a sessions court.

On Jan 23, the top court, accepting the plea of Khadija Siddiqui, ordered police to arrest Shah Hussain and send him to prison from the courtroom.

Siddiqui was stabbed more than two dozen times on a busy Lahore Street while she was picking her six-year-old sister Sofia Siddiqui from school on May 3, 2016.

She was attacked by her class fellow Hussain for reportedly rejecting a proposal.

A Lahore judicial magistrate had handed down seven-year rigorous imprisonment to Hussain after finding him guilty of attempted murder on July 29, 2017.

However, a sessions court in March 2018 set aside the minor penalties of the convict and commuted the sentenced to five years.

Last year, the Lahore High Court acquitted the convict on lack of evidence.

The matter landed in the top court when then chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar took a suo motu notice of the acquittal in June 2018.