A division bench of the Lahore High Court on Monday granted bail to former Sialkot DPO Waqar Chohan, suspending his three-year sentence awarded by an anti-terrorism court in the Sialkot lynching case.
The bench of Chief Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry and Justice Shahid Hameed Dar passed the order, directing Chohan to deposit two surety bonds of Rs 100,000 each against the bail granted until a decision on the appeal filed by him in the Lahore High Court against his sentence.
On September 20, the Anti-Terrorism Court in Gujranwala sentenced seven people to death, six to life in prison and three-years to all policemen, including the former DPO.
During proceedings, the appellant’s lawyer Faisal Shahzad Gondal argued before the court that Waqar was innocent and wrongly convicted in the case. The counsel pleaded the law of the land allowed convicts the right of bail in short-term sentences awarded by a trial court and the former DPO had played no direct role in the lynching incident, therefore, was entitled to the right of bail until the decision of his appeal by the LHC.
The counsel pleaded that the turn of his appeal against the three-year sentence would not come before three to four years due to the backlog load of cases at the LHC, so it would be unjust to keep him behind bars for that long.
The lawyer said the appellant was convicted under Section 155(C) of the Police Order 2002 and sentenced to three years in prison and fined Rs 50,000, which was against the law and facts of the case, as the trial court did not apprise evidence in accordance with settled principles of law.
However, the deputy prosecutor opposed the contentions submitted by the petitioner’s counsel and pleaded the court to dismiss the bail application. After hearing the arguments, the bench agreed to the the petitioner’s counsel and granted bail to the former DPO.
