Khadija Siddiqui case: Convict Shah Hussain released from jail

LAHORE: The convict in the Khadija Siddiqui stabbing case, Shah Hussain, was released before the completion of his five-year jail term for attacking the girl with a knife, stabbing her 23 times besides injuring her sister in 2016, ARY News reported.

The convict Shah Hussain was released from jail before the Eidul Azha festival on July 17, who had been awarded five-year imprisonment on January 26, 2019.

The imprisonment period of Shah Hussain was reduced following the remission in sentences on different occasions.

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He had attacked Khadija Siddiqui, a student at a private law college, with a knife on May 3, 2016, on a busy Lahore street when she and her six-year-old sister Sofia Siddiqui were about to get into the car.

Miraculously, Khadija had been saved by her driver who took control of the attacker forcing Shah to flee from the scene. Consequently, Khadija had gotten around 60 stitches on her neck.

Following the brutal attack, which led him to face the case registered under the sections of attempted murder and others. Deciding to lodge a complaint against the perpetrator, Khadija had fought over a year of strenuous battle which brought her to an unprecedented victory.

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

Shah Hussain’s father, an influential lawyer, had used his connections to coerce the complainant into withdrawing the case. The victim stood her ground fighting for what’s right and later the convict was arrested from the courtroom.

In 2018, the Lahore High Court had acquitted the convict on lack of evidence. Later, the matter had landed in the top court when then chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar took a suo motu notice of the acquittal in June 2018.

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Hussain had also moved to the Supreme Court (SC), however, his petition seeking a review of its ruling in the Khadija Siddiqui case was dismissed in August 2018.

A three-judge bench, headed by then Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, had upheld five-year term handed down to convict Shah Hussain.

The then CJP Khosa had observed there is a difference between a murder case and that of attempted murder. He held an injury inflicted on anybody with intent to murder him/her will be treated as attempted murder.