KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has upheld the life imprisonment handed down to an appellant by the trial court in a case pertaining to the rape of an underage girl.

The SHC noted that the testimony of the victim found to be cogent and trustworthy while the conviction of appellant epitomised the judicious application of evidentiary principles, the primacy of substantive justice and the constitutional imperative to safeguard vulnerable minors from exploitation.

A sessions court had sentenced Umar Farooq to life in prison last year for raping his 14-year-old relative girl at his house in Qaimkhani Colony, Baldia Town, in 2023.

The prosecution said the victim and her younger sister were residing with their aunt Saeeda and her husband/ appellant at the time of incident since girls’ father was a drug addict.

The convict through his counsel had challenged the conviction order of the trial court before the SHC. After hearing both sides and examining the record and proceedings of the case, the single-judge bench of the SHC headed by Justice Khalid Hussain Shahani dismissed the appeal and maintained the conviction order.

The lawyer for the appellant mainly advanced his arguments about misreading of the material evidence by the trial court, a delay of 68 days in lodging the FIR and inconclusive DNA report.

The bench in its order observed that the minor/victim has provided a sworn ocular account which satisfied the threshold of reliability and particularity mandated in sexual offense cases as she explicitly identified the appellant, detailing the sequence of events and recounting repeated violations under threats to murder her sibling which constituted direct evidence.

It said the narrative’s internal coherence, coupled with the victim’s ability to withstand cross-examination without material deviation from the core allegation, fulfills the legal standard of sterling reputation.

The bench also noted that the prosecution fortified the victim’s account with expert forensic corroboration through the testimony of woman medico-legal officer.

“The victim’s delayed disclosure predicated on the appellant’s continuous threats of lethal retaliation against her sibling, constitutes a compelling and legally cognisable justification under the doctrine of coercive control, a paradigm recognised in modern jurisprudence to account for the psychological dynamics of abuse. This explanation is not merely plausible but carries presumptive validity in cases involving minors subjected to sexual violence by custodial figures,” it added

It also said the victim’s eventual disclosure, when contextualised within her gradual escape from the appellant’s dominion, thus forms a corroborative nexus with her core testimony, reinforcing rather than diminishing its probative value.

Regarding the DNA report, the bench noted that the prolonged interval between the last act of abuse and medical examination (compounded by the victim’s disclosure delay) inherently diminished the likelihood of detecting seminal material.

It further said that the wife of the appellant testified as defence witness, which was inherently self-serving and lacked independent corroboration rendering it insufficient to rebut the prosecution’s case while defence’s theory of false implication premised on a purported property dispute between the appellant’s wife Saeeda and the complainant Gul Muhammad, a brother of Saeeda and parental uncle of the victim, was a classic argumentum ad speculum (argument to the mirror) reflecting mere conjecture.

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2025