Indian convict to be given benefit of law, PHC told

PESHAWAR: The government has informed the Peshawar High Court that benefit of section 382-B of the Code of Criminal Procedure would be given to the convicted Indian national Hamid Nehal Ansari by a military court for entering Pakistan on fake documents.

The law officers including Deputy Attorney General Musarratullah Khan and Additional Advocate General Waqar Ahmad informed a division bench comprising Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Muhammad Daud Khan that the Indian convict was entitled to the benefit of Section 382-B.

However, the bench sought details from the provincial and federal governments regarding the arrest of the Indian national and his expected release from the prison before the next hearing.  The court also directed the government to provide required treatment to the said prisoner in the Peshawar Central Prison.

About shifting him from the death cell to the hospital or to an ordinary room, the law officers said he was kept there for security reasons as one prisoner had already attacked him in the prison. 

The Indian national, Hamid Nehal Ansari, had filed a writ petition in the high court through his lawyer Qazi Muhammad Anwar, to seek benefit of Section 382-B and his shifting to the Peshawar prison’s hospital or to an ordinary room from the death cell at the jail.

A military court on November 14, 2015 awarded three years rigorous imprisonment to him for entering Pakistan on fake documents. The prison authorities have confined him to a vacant death cell as one of the most protected prisoners.