SHC overturns journalist’s 5-year sentence, orders his immediate release

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has acquitted senior journalist of Karachi Nasrullah Chaudhry in a case of possessing alleged prohibited literature. The court has overturned his sentence and ordered his immediate release from jail.

The personnel of law enforcement organisations wearing plain clothes had taken him into custody illegally from his home on night of 8th November 2018. After that the Karachi Press Club and other media organisations had lodged strong protest.

Later on, the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) after keeping him in illegal custody for three days lodged baseless case of possessing prohibited literature.

The ant-terrorist court judge Munir Bhutto on 26th December 2019 handed down five years imprisonment to Nasarullah Chaudhry in false case of possessing prohibited literature. Not only Pakistan but the international journalist organisations also condemned this punishment.

On 31st December 2019 Nasrullah Chaudhry had challenged the ATC verdict in Sindh High Court and termed the allegations leveled against him as baseless.

Nasrullah Chaudhry’s counsel Muhammad Farooq Advocate appeared before the SHC bench on Wednesday and presented arguments in the appeal against his five-year sentence. The lawyer argued that the journalist was taken into custody three days before his arrest was actually declared. He also said the FIR was illegal. According to his appeal the CTD kept him in illegal custody and then registered a false case against him to threaten journalists. Nasrullah Chaudhry’s lawyer also argued that the prosecution was unable to prove its case. They never presented any evidence of his possessing prohibited literature during the hearing, he argued. The court after hearing the arguments acquitted him from the case and termed the allegations leveled against him as baseless. The court has ordered release of Nasrullah Chaudhry immediately.