Attack on candle-lit vigil for Taseer

LAHORE: The Supreme Court Thursday deleted Section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 from a case against five men convicted of attacking a vigil held by civil society members to mark the 5th death anniversary of Punjab’s slain governor Salman Taseer in 2015.

The trial court had handed down five-year jail term under Section 7 of ATA, three-and-half-year under Section 365 of PPC, two-year under Section 149 of PPC and three-year under 153-A of PPC and three-year under Section 148 of PPC to each convict including Aqeel, Furqan, Kashif, Iftikhar and Wazir Ali. The convicts had challenged their conviction before the Supreme Court. A three-member bench headed by Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik partially allowed their appeals as it deleted Section 7 ATA from the case leading to termination of their five-year jail term. However, the bench upheld their conviction under different sections of the PPC.

Advocate Abdullah Malik, the complainant of the case, personally appeared before the bench and opposed the appeals. He said the provision of the anti-terrorism law was inserted in the FIR as the convicts were also charged with attacking media persons while performing their duty in addition to the participants of the vigil. More than a dozen baton-wielding men had attacked the participants of the candle-lit vigil held at the Liberty Chowk in Lahore to mark the death anniversary of Salman Taseer on Jan 4, 2015. The attackers tore the banners, pictures and posters displayed at the venue and also thrashed the activists holding the vigil. They also shouted slogans in favour of Mumtaz Qadri, a police guard who gunned down Taseer in Islamabad for supporting a blasphemy convict, Asia Masih, and was later sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court. Qadri was also executed.