PESHAWAR: A child protection court has acquitted a man on the charge of sexually abusing his 13-year-old stepdaughter over a year ago here.

Acquittal of the accused came before conclusion of trial under Section 265-K of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which empowers the court to acquit an accused at any stage of the trial if there is no probability of his conviction on the basis of available evidence.

Both the alleged assault victim and her mother said that they had made a compromise with the accused, so they had no objection to his acquittal.

“In the given circumstances, it is observed that there is no chance of the conviction of the accused facing trial in the case when the complainant and victim, who are material and star witnesses of the prosecution case, and the complainant party has exonerated the accused facing trial of the charges levelled against him and having no objection on the acquittal of the accused facing trial as such probabilities of conviction are also remote. Therefore, proceeding further with the trial will amount to a futile exercise and a waste of our precious time,” the court declared.

It added that by invoking Section 265-K of CrPC, the accused facing trial was acquitted in the case by extending him the benefit of doubt.

The FIR of the alleged assault was registered at theMathra police station on June 1, 2023, on the complaint of the alleged victim and her mother.

The accused was indicted by the court under the Pakistan Penal Code’s Section 377-B (punishment for sexual abuse) and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act’s Section 53 (child sexual abuse).

Advocate Saifullah Mohmand appeared for the accused and insisted that his client was falsely implicated in the instant case.

He pointed out that the FIR of the occurrence was registered after a delay of five days.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2024