ATC awards life term in Asma’s rape and murder case

MARDAN: The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Monday awarded life term to the accused involved in sexual assault on a four-year old girl Asma and later killing her in Gujjar Garhi.

It may be mentioned that Asma went missing on January 13 from her home in Gujjar Garhi. Later her body was recovered from fields and the police registered a case. Himayatullah Mayar, who was district nazim at that time, had said that the minor girl was sexually abused but the police was trying to hush up the case. The post-mortem report confirmed that the girl was raped before being strangled. The district government had also called an All Parties Conference to press the police to include rape and terrorism clauses in the FIR. The police obliged after the public pressure mounted. Following the FIR, the police arrested over 200 people. The police took blood samples of some of the suspects and sent them to forensic laboratory in Lahore. The DNA of one accused M Nabi, a relative of the girl, had matched the sample. The police arrested the accused and produced him in court on February 11 where the accused confessed to his crime. Later, the case proceedings were started and continued for over four months. On Monday, ATC Judge Younas Khan awarded life term to M Nabi with Rs1m fine. Talking to reporters, the counsel for the plaintiff said the accused was under 18 years age and due to this reason the court did not award death sentence to him.