PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court has set aside the acquittal of a medical doctor and sentenced him to life imprisonment with fine of Rs500,000 for sexually assaulting his 12-year-old sister-in-law over three years ago.

A bench consisting of Justice Sahibzada Asadullah and Justice Inamullah Khan accepted an appeal filed by the victim and declared that the trial court had erred in acquitting the suspect.

The bench convicted the man under Section 376 of Pakistan Penal Code and Section 53 of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act. The convict was sentenced to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs500,000 under Section 376-B of PPC.

Similarly, he was sentenced under Section 53 of CPWA to seven years rigorous imprisonment, along with a fine of Rs100,000. The bench ordered that both the sentences should run concurrently.

PHC accepts appeal of victim, sets aside acquittal order of trial court

An additional sessions judge/child protection court had acquitted the suspect on Nov 11, 2025 in the case. He was charged in an FIR registered at Hayatabad police station on Feb 14, 2023, over a complaint lodged by the victim, who had visited the station along with her father.

The complainant and her father are also US nationals and had gone there after the occurrence. The wife of the suspect (sister of the victim) had also taken divorce from him afterward. The victim and her father had recorded their statements during trial from the US through video link.

According to the prosecution, the occurrence took place on Feb 6, 2023. The victim claimed in the FIR that her parents and sister had gone outside for some work, while her brother was asleep in the guest room of the house. She claimed that she was present in the lounge, when the suspect approached her and sexually assaulted her.

Barrister Amir Khan Chamkani appeared for the appellant and contended that despite presence of sufficient evidence connecting the suspect with the commission of the offence, the trial court had acquitted him.

The counsel for the respondent attributed the prosecution case to a conspiracy, contending that the alleged victim’s sister, who was married to the respondent, desired dissolution of the marriage and that, to facilitate such separation, the victim’s family fabricated the present allegation and falsely implicated his client.

The bench overruled his arguments, observing that the mere fact that a matrimonial dispute subsequently arose between the respondent and his wife didn’t establish that the present criminal allegation was conceived or engineered for the purpose of facilitating dissolution of that marriage.

In its 39-page detailed judgement, the bench discussed multiple aspects of the case including delay of eight days in lodging the complaint and forensic evidence available on the record.

“The victim’s father was admittedly abroad at the relevant time; the victim remained within the family environment; the accused was closely related to her in different capacities; and, upon his return to the country, the father furnished his passport and boarding pass to the investigating officer, thereby providing contemporaneous material supporting his absence and subsequent arrival,” the bench ruled.

“The record, therefore, does not present a case of unexplained or suspicious silence. Rather, it reflects a short interval arising in the context of an allegation of an exceptionally grave and sensitive nature, involving a closely connected family member, in circumstances where the victim and her family were confronted with the immediate consequences of the occurrence and were required to decide how and when to set the criminal law in motion,” the bench observed.

It added that the mere lapse of eight days couldn’t, in such circumstances, be treated as conclusive proof of consultation, deliberation or fabrication on part of the complainant.

“The approach adopted by the learned trial court is also inconsistent with the settled judicial understanding of human behaviour in cases involving sexual offences.

Delay in reporting such an occurrence cannot be assessed through an inflexible or stereotypical standard of conduct, divorced from the social, familial and psychological circumstances in which the allegation arises,” the bench ruled.

Referring to different judgements of superior courts, the bench pointed out: “The Supreme Court of Pakistan has repeatedly recognised that the victim and her family may require time to recover from the shock of the occurrence and to overcome the stigma, shame and apprehension associated with reporting a sexual offence.”

The bench referred to one of the judgements wherein it was observed that prevailing social taboos might result in cases of rape remaining unreported and that a victim could not be disbelieved merely on account of an ostensible delay in reporting the occurrence. The bench also discussed the forensic evidence in the case.

“In the present case, the DNA profiling was conducted by the duly constituted forensic laboratory; the samples and their examination have been established through the prosecution evidence; and no substantive circumstance has been brought on record to impeach the integrity, authenticity or scientific methodology of the laboratory examination,” the bench pointed out.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2026