SC to hear Khadija Siddiqi stabbing case tomorrow

ISLAMABAD: A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court will take up the Khadija Siddiqi stabbing case on Jan 23 (tomorrow).

Headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa the bench will hear an appeal filed by the stab victim, Khadijia Siddiqi against the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) decision to acquit the accused.

Siddiqi, 24, was stabbed more than two dozen times on a busy Lahore Street where she arrived to collect her six-year-old sister Sofia Siddiqui from school on May 3, 2016.

She was attacked by her class fellow Shah Hussain for reportedly rejecting a proposal. A Lahore judicial magistrate 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.

Former chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar subsequently took suo motu notice of the acquittal in June 2018 and forwarded the appeal to another two-member Supreme Court bench led by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa.

Enraged at the then chief justice’s taking cognizance of the matter,  the accused’s father, an influential lawyer, had moved a resolution to the Lahore High Court Bar Association, demanding that the country’s top court make rules on suo motu powers.