LHC quashes woman's life term conviction over killing 7-month niece

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday quashed life sentence to a woman charged of killing her 7-month old niece, ARY News reported.

A bench of the high court in its decision on appeal of the accused declared conviction by a trial court as void and acquitted her over lack of evidence.

Justice Muhammad Amjad Rafique in verdict said that the police was informed after seven hours of the incident and no justification was given for the delay.

“The prosecution failed to take the cot and other concerned items in its possession”. “The police had not found traces of blood from the crime scene. The postmortem was not reported in the FIR. The failure in describing the postmortem is a major flaw in the case,” the court pointed out in the decision.

“The postmortem of the child was conducted nine hours after the incident.”

“The prosecution said that the child was killed with an iron rod, while the postmortem report said that the girl was thrown from the first floor of building,” the court observed.

“The prosecution not produced mother of the child who was present,” the court said.

“The trial court awarded the accused life sentence and Rs one lac fine.”

“Accused woman had a land dispute with her brother due to which they were involved in water distribution dispute,” the court said.

“Accused and her brother were also engaged in scuffle, which distressed the accused. The prosecution produced five witnesses against the accused. The woman however stated that she was being entrapped in the case to take her landed property,” the bench observed.