LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Wednesday dismissed a petition seeking deletion of terrorism charges from a case related to the deaths of six people in a car accident in the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) at the hands of an underage driver.

ATC-I Judge Manzer Ali Gill announced the decision on the petition of Afnan Shafqat and other suspects challenging the inclusion of terrorism charges in the FIR.

The suspects had requested that the case be transferred to a court of ordinary jurisdiction (sessions court), arguing that the police wrongly included provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 in the case and that the incident did not constitute an act of terrorism.

However, the judge dismissed the plea and summoned prosecution witnesses to record their statements on Feb 28.

The Defence police had registered the FIR in 2023 on a complaint of Rafaqat Ali, who lost his wife Rukhsana Bibi (45), son Husnain (25), daughter-in-law Ayesha (23), son-in-law Sajjad (30), four-month-old grandson Huzaifa, and granddaughter Anaya (4) in the deadly road accident.

Besides driver Afnan, his father Shafqat Ali, and friends Ali Abdullah, Muhammad Saad and Muhammad Ibrahim have also been declared guilty of multiple offences in the police challan.

The investigation report said the underage suspect and his friends first harassed the women passengers before hitting their car. Shafqat, a property dealer, had been accused of illegally letting his underage son drive.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2025