the spot in the same case, but the court acquitted Muhammad Sharif in the case and sentenced the appellant.
He said the police did not say in the report as to wherefrom the explosives and other material had been recovered as about seven men were living in the joint family house and the case was registered against two persons only.
The bench also acquitted Jabir Shah, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the anti-terrorism court Mardan in the case of killing of police officer during a raid on a hideout in Kharki area of Mardan district in 2009.
The PHC bench issued the acquittal orders of the terror convicts after the assistant advocate general, representing the state, failed to defend the conviction due to the inconsistency in the statements of police witnesses and the first information report and also the faulty investigation in these cases.
However, the bench upheld the 14 years sentence of a terror convict Shoaib, who carried the alias Afsar as well as Qari, on terrorism charges. The anti-terrorism court, Peshawar had awarded him 14 years sentence and fined him Rs50,000 for planting a cooking oil tin filled with explosives at the Saifan police post. The convict had challenged the sentence in the high court.
The state lawyer stated that the accused had also made confession that he did this on the orders of the banned militant group, Lashkar-e-Islam and also mentioned the names of LI commanders in his statement. He was arrested by the police on April 20, 2014 and the court sentenced him on June 16, 2014.
In another case, the bench dismissed the appeal against conviction of an accused in the sexual abuse of a boy. The anti-terrorism court Mardan had awarded five-year sentence and fine of Rs5,000 to Muhammad Asif, resident of Swabi, for sexually abusing a class-6 student Zeeshan Ahmad and then making a video footage with his mobile phone for blackmailing purposes.The bench, after hearing arguments from both the sides, maintained the five years sentence of the accused.