LAHORE: A law student, who has been striving for justice after being brutally stabbed by her classmate last year, on Friday sat an examination under the police protection as the alleged attacker also was in the same centre.

Speaking to the media outside the examination centre, Khadija Siddique, 22, bemoaned she was unable to appear in her last year’s examination because she was admitted to hospital nursing critical injuries.

Alleged to have been stabbed 23 times by her classmate, Khadija is longing for justice and appeals to a cross-section of society to help her fight her case.

Law student sits exam under police protection

On May 3 last year, Khadija, a student at The Institute of Legal Studies (TILS), Gulberg, had gone to pick up her sister Sofia Siddiqui, 7, from Convent of Jesus and Mary on Durand Road when her classmate Shah Husain attacked her. Husain allegedly kept stabbing the girl and inflicted life-threatening scars on her.

As Khadija was scheduled to appear in Friday’s examination, she said she did not feel safe because she apprehended that her alleged attacker would be in the same examination hall. “Sitting the examination in such circumstances was nothing short of an ordeal and I kept praying and trying to remember the course material,” she said.

Khadija, who wishes to join the Pakistan Bar Council after completing her studies, said she would take her case to the Supreme Court. She said there was no question of forgiving the attacker who stabbed her more than two dozen times as condoning such a horrendous crime would embolden the perpetrator.

Also present outside the centre was Khadija’s mother who, while speaking to reporters, requested the chief justice of Pakistan to take notice of her daughter’s plight and mete out justice. “I appeal to everyone to help us because our fight is for the rights of all the women in the country,” she said.

According to the girl’s father, the accused was set on bail by a court because he belongs to an influential family. He told Dawn that they were feeling threatened and the thought of sending his daughter for her third-year examination in the hall where the attacker would be present sent shivers down his spine. He, however, sounded optimistic that the accused would be convicted after completion of the trial.

The trial of the case is under progress before a judicial magistrate of Cantonment Courts and its next hearing is fixed for May 22 (Monday).

Earlier, the sessions court granted Husain bail on Dec 1, 2016 after he had spent two months behind the bars. Khadija filed an appeal against the court’s decision but it was dismissed.

Meanwhile, Supreme Court Bar Association Secretary Aftab Bajwa, who is the lawyer of the accused, sent a legal notice to a TV channel for `defaming’ the legal community.

Bajwa sent the notice on the SCBA letterhead which was later disowned by the bar’s executive committee.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2017