LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court on Saturday acquitted 12 people of child abuse charge for the lack of evidence in one of 29 cases registered by Kasur police in 2015.

The acquitted people were charged with committing sodomy with a teenage boy and also filming the act, however, the prosecution failed to establish its case.

The prosecution had presented 16 witnesses but ATC-IV Judge Chaudhry Muhammad Ilyas did not find them convincing.

Those declared innocent include Tanzeelur Rehman, Attiqur Rehman, Saleem Akhtar Sherazi, Waseem Abid, Aleem Asif, Waseem Sindhi, Irfan Faridi, Faizan Majeed and Usman Khalid.

Ganda Singhwala police of Kasur had registered 29 cases against more than dozen suspects on charges of abducting and sexually assaulting 280 children of the same district. The prosecution had accused them of sexually assaulting young boys and filming the incidents to blackmail their victims.

Previously, Faizan Majeed, Waseem Sindhi and Haseem Amir were sentenced to life in jail in one of the cases while acquitted them in another giving benefit of doubt.

In some of the cases, the trial court had deleted section 7 of ATA from the FIRs and referred the trials of the suspects to sessions court. However, the LHC on the appeal of the prosecution set aside the decision and restored the provision of the terrorism.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2018