ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has acquitted three convicts in a terrorism case involving the murder of six Attock police personnel, known as the Pindi Gheb attack case, citing weaknesses in the prosecution’s case and a lack of evidence. The accused had previously been sentenced to six counts of the death penalty each, along with life imprisonment.
A three-member bench, headed by Justice Muhammad Hashim Khan Kakar and comprising Justice Salahuddin Panhwar and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim, issued the judgment in the appeal filed by Ali Imran, Hafiz Aizuzur Rehman and Shujauddin against the Lahore High Court (Rawalpindi Bench) verdict passed on March 31, 2022.
In its decision, the court set aside the sentences awarded by both the trial court and the Lahore High Court and ordered the immediate release of the accused. In the eight-page written judgment authored by Justice Ibrahim, the apex court ruled that the prosecution had completely failed to prove the charges; therefore, the accused were acquitted on the basis of the benefit of doubt. The court held that the prosecution failed to present any direct or circumstantial evidence linking the accused to the crime. The evidence presented by the prosecution was full of contradictions and uncertainties, casting serious doubts on the veracity of the entire case, it noted.
The court reiterated the fundamental principle of criminal justice that even the slightest doubt regarding the guilt of an accused must go in their favour. “This benefit of doubt is not a concession but a legal right of the accused.” The court held that the lower courts had committed a serious legal error by ignoring these fundamental flaws in the case. The court noted that the accused were not named in the FIR, and their joint identification parade was legally inadmissible. It further observed that the police had already identified the accused before the identification parade, rendering the process unreliable.
It seemed unnatural that witnesses present at the scene of such a major attack remained completely unharmed, which raised serious questions about the credibility of the prosecution’s evidence, the judgment pointed out. “In the FIR registered under Sections 302, 324, 353, 396, 435, 427, 148 and 149 of the Pakistan Penal Code, read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, at Talagang Police Station, District Chakwal, against the present appellants, wherein they had allegedly made disclosures regarding their involvement in the instant occurrence, the appellants have already been acquitted by this Court vide judgment dated February 17, 2025, while allowing Criminal Appeal No. 627 of 2022,” the court held. “In such circumstances, the alleged disclosures attributed to the appellants regarding the commission of the offence in the present case do not carry any legal weight and cannot be relied upon to connect them with the occurrence,” it added.
The court observed that the prosecution had failed to bring on record any independent evidence, either direct or circumstantial, which could reasonably connect the appellants with the commission of the offence. The court held that the evidence produced by the prosecution was replete with material inconsistencies and inherent improbabilities, which cast serious doubt upon the veracity of the prosecution’s case. “It is a well-settled principle of criminal jurisprudence that if a single circumstance creates reasonable doubt in a prudent mind about the guilt of the accused, the benefit of such doubt must go to the accused,” said the judgment.
The court held that such benefit was to be extended not as a matter of grace or concession but as a matter of right. “The learned courts, while failing to advert to the aforementioned infirmities and material doubts in the prosecution’s case, have thus fallen into a serious error of law in holding the appellants guilty of the offences charged against them,” the court ruled.
After allowing the appeal, the court set aside the convictions and sentences of the appellants recorded by the lower courts and acquitted them of the charges by extending to them the benefit of doubt. The court ordered that the appellants be released forthwith, if not required to be detained in any other case.
The incident occurred on May 1, 2011, in Pindi Gheb, Attock district, where four persons opened indiscriminate fire on police personnel sitting in a hotel. As a result, Sub-Inspector Muhammad Ramzan died on the spot, while other personnel — Shakir Abbas, Muhammad Sajjad, Adil Rabbani, Muhammad Imran and Saifullah — later succumbed to their injuries.
