Mansehra rape case: Accused, co-accused get 14-10 years jail respectively

MANSEHRA: The Abbottabad circuit bench of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday upheld the verdict of a subordinate court in a case pertaining to gang rape of a student in a moving car in 2014.

The two-member bench of the high court comprising Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Attique Shah handed down 14 years in jail to main accused in the case Qari Naseer, 10 years to co-accused Mohammad Faizan and acquitted Hussain Mushtaq as the petitioner couldn’t provide evidence of his involvement in the rape.

The court also upheld the decision of Mansehra District and Sessions Judge pronounced in 2017 acquitting a female suspect stated to be a classfellow of the victim, a student of first year.

The judgment was reserved on April 7, 2018 after counsels for both sides completed arguments.

The convicts, according to a first information report lodged at the City Police Station in 2014, had trapped the student of a local girls’ college with support of her class fellow and forcibly raped her in a moving car from Mansehra to Abbottabad. The police had submitted the case first in Anti-Terrorism Court in Abbottabad but was referred to district and sessions judge after jurisdiction of the ATC was challenged in the case in 2016.