LAHORE, Jan 18: Drawing a line between terror of heinous crimes and terrorism, the Lahore High Court has ruled that a crime where the victim is targeted cannot be treated as terrorism and thus does not qualify to be tried in special courts set up under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997.

Accepting a petition which challenged the jurisdiction of a special court of Gujranwala in a murder case, a division bench of the Lahore High Court, comprising Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa and Justice M A Shahid Siddiqui, held in a judgment passed on Thursday last that the commission of crime could only be tried by courts set up under ordinary laws.

Setting aside as unlawful the decision by the Gujranwala ATC, which dismissed a plea against its jurisdiction, the LHC directed the special court to transfer the record of the case to the district and sessions judge who should decide about its further proceedings.

The judgement may become, once for all, a guiding principle for the police to make a definite distinction for cases to be tried by the ATCs. Petitioner Basharat Ali was among a group of persons who allegedly attacked and killed four people and injured another eight in Alipur Chattha village on April 24, 2001, as a sequel to an old enmity. They were charged with murder and other offences and their case was sent to the ATC No 2 for trial.

Basharat filed an application with the special court challenging its jurisdiction and sought the transfer of the case to a court of ordinary jurisdiction. The application was dismissed on Oct 10, 2003.

The dismissal was challenged in the Lahore High Court through advocate Chaudhry Fawwad Husain, raising the question if crime as heinous as murder could be treated an act of terrorism and sent to an ATC.

The state, represented by assistant advocate-general Mohammad Suhail Dar, did not oppose the petition. He contended that mere gravity of an offence and its affect on society was no longer a criteria to determine its character as terrorism.

Citing section 6 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, the AAG said: "An action, no matter how grave it was, could not be termed terrorism if it was not committed with the motive of scaring the general public." Chaudhry Fawwad Husain contended that terrorism was linked with scare in society and was not a targeted crime and thus cases like murder did not qualify to be treated like terrorism-related crimes triable by special court.

He opposed the selection of police for sending the murder case to be tried by the special court and submitted that such courts were not supposed to try ordinary crimes no matter how grave they were.

The Lahore High Court held that terror and terrorism were concepts quite distinct from each other. Terror as a manifestation of awe, fear and insecurity was a consequential affect created by an act which might not necessarily be motivated to create such an atmosphere. On the other hand, terrorism was an activity designed to create such a social affect.

Similarly, terror was not motivated to create fear and insecurity in society because such an act had its victims targeted. Terrorism, on the other hand, was not targeted to individuals but society as a whole as it was designed to create a general fear. Every crime created a certain impact on society but every felony could not be branded as terrorism, according to the judgement.

The judgement said the recent wave of terrorism, from the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand to the axis of evil, across the world, had a political overtone and Pakistan was no exception. Citing the PLD 1998 SC 1445, PLD 2000 SC 111 and PLD 2001 SC 521 for the purpose of the principle of nexus, the judgement declared that terrorism did not apply on the crime no matter how brutal it was. The crime was committed to settle a personal vendetta and not projected at creating a general fear and insecurity in society, the judgement added.- Mahmood Zaman