LAHORE, Dec 12: The Punjab Public Prosecution Department has forwarded eight rape cases to anti-terrorism courts (ATCs) after getting these transferred from the subordinate courts of the province. The victims in all cases were minor.

Chief Prosecutor Chaudhry Jahangir Ahmad told Dawn on Sunday the department had got convicted six people in five of the eight cases so far from the ATCs which had awarded life imprisonment and death sentence.

Muhammad Jahangir was convicted on Saturday by the ATC in Bahawalpur, which awarded him down life imprisonment and Rs150,000 fine. “The accused had raped a five-year old girl in Rahim Yar Khan’s C-Division police precinct four months back,” he said. Similarly, he said, the ATCs in other such cases of Lahore awarded death sentence to two and life imprisonment to three convicts.

He said Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had ordered the department’s prosecutors to follow these cases on a regular basis to ensure exemplary punishment to the convicts.