LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Wednesday acquitted the two men who were handed down life imprisonment in one of the cases pertaining to Kasur child abuse scandal surfacing in 2015.

A two-member LHC bench comprising Justice Shehram Sarwar Chaudhry and Justice Amjad Rafiq allowed the appeals of the convicts -- Haseem Amir and Faizan Majeed.

A counsel for the appellants argued that there were several discrepancies in the prosecution’s story and the police investigation into the scam. He said the prosecution could not produce any cogent evidence to establish its charges against the appellants.

He said even the forensic audit of the videos failed to identify the appellants, who had been serving jail terms.

The appellants would not be able come out of the jail immediately due to their conviction in other FIRs as well.

In December 2023, the high court had also acquitted three suspects -- Haseem Amir, Aleem Asif and Waseem Abid -- in one of the cases pertaining to the Kasur child abuse video scandal.

Ganda Singhwala police had registered at least 29 FIRs against dozens of suspects on charges of abducting and sexually assaulting around 280 children of Kasur district.

The prosecution charged the accused persons with sexually assaulting young boys and filming the criminal act to blackmail the victims.

Several accused persons were later acquitted by the trial court for lack of evidence.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2024