LAHORE - A judicial magistrate of Cantonment Courts on Thursday reserved the judgement on Khadija Siddiqui stab case.

Shah Hussain, son of a lawyer, has been blamed for stabbing his class-fellow 23 times on busy Davis Road when she was waiting outside a school to pick her younger sister.

The victim’s agony came to the spotlight a few months ago when she was forced to sit an exam with her alleged attacker, prompting authorities to issue statements showing solidarity with her.

The Lahore High Court took notice and issued directives to subordinate courts to conduct hearing of the case on a daily basis. Judicial Magistrate Mubashir Awan heard the case and took two months to conclude the proceedings.

During the hearing, the prosecution presented 11 witnesses to prove the suspect guilty of attempted murder, while the defence opposed it, pleading the judge to delete the offence of attempted murder. The decision is likely to be announced on July 29.

Khadija appeared before the judge and recorded her statement, telling the court that Shah Hussain, wearing a helmet, attacked her with a sharp-edged weapon. She told the court that the attacker attempted to flee after committing the crime but she caught him. His helmet fell down when he was trying to flee and she recognised him, the victim told the court, adding that her younger sister too sustained wounds in the brazen daylight attack.

Another plea for making

public Model Town probe

Another application was filed in the Lahore High Court on Thursday, seeking directives for the government to make Model Town inquiry report pubic.

Civil Society Network President Abdullah Malik moved the application through Advocate Azhar Siddique. He said three years had passed while the Model Town tragedy inquiry report was not made public.  Earlier, citizen Irfan Ahmad filed the application for the same purpose. The petitioners blamed the tragedy on the government.  “PML-N rulers were the biggest obstacle to make public the j report,” they said.