LAHORE - A Lahore High Court (LHC) division bench Thursday acquitted two men after setting aside their life imprisonment in a case related to the 2015 Kasur child abuse scandal. The bench, comprising Justice Shehram Sarwar Chaudhry and Justice Muhammad Amjad Rafiq, allowed the appeal of Haseem Amir and Faizan Majeed challenging their life imprisonment handed down by an anti-terrorism court. The appellants’ counsel, Abid Hussain Khichi, argued before the bench that the trial court failed to appreciate the case facts, and despite contradictions in the statements of witnesses, it handed down life imprisonment to his clients. He requested the bench to allow the appeal and acquit his clients due to contradictions in the statements of the witnesses. In 2016, an anti-terrorism court handed down life imprisonment to the convicts, besides ordering them to pay Rs 300,000 as compensation to their victims, after finding them guilty in a case registered by Ganda Singhwala police in connection with the scandal
Ganda Singhwala police had registered the case against the convicts on charges of abducting and sexually assaulting children in Kasur.
The police had registered several cases against 32 men after the scandal surfaced in 2015. However, the trial court handed down punishment in three cases only, whereas the accused were acquitted in the remaining cases.
In December 2023, the LHC had already acquitted three men, Haseem Amir, Aleem Asif, and Waseem, after setting aside their life imprisonment in a case related to the 2015 scandal.