LAHORE: On Thursday, an anti-terrorism court dismissed terrorism-related charges in a case involving harassment of a lady in Ichhra Bazaar for donning an Arabic-printed shirt.
On the suspects’ pleas, Judge Arshad Javed issued an order directing his office to move the case to a sessions court.
The cleric Maulana Aleemuddin Shakir, Khalid Mahmood, and Allama Saqib Ali were proclaimed innocent, whereas suspects Altamish Saqlain, Nadeem, Muhammad Ali alias Chand Butt, Malik Khurram Shehzad, and Adil Sarwar were found guilty by the police investigation.
Based on the information in the FIR, the suspects’ attorneys contended that the terrorism accusations could not be brought against their clients.
A week after the incident at Ichhra Bazaar, where dozens of religiously motivated individuals accused a woman of blasphemy because she was wearing a shirt with an Arabic calligraphy print, Ichhra police filed a formal complaint.
The woman was threatened to death by the mob. But the woman had been saved by a police team under the command of ASP Sheharbano Naqvi, and she had been taken to a police station.
