LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Saturday acquitted 12 men in one of the 29 cases filed in the Kasur child sex abuse scandal that come to the fore in 2015.
The men who were accused of raping a teenager in Kasur were released due to a “lack of evidence”. The prosecution had produced 16 witnesses against the accused during the course of the proceedings.
Earlier on Tuesday, the court awarded life imprisonment to three accused involved in the Kasur video scandal.
Suspects Haseem Amir, Waseem Sindhi and Aleem Asif have also been fined Rs0.3 million each.
Kasur police presented charge sheets against Haseem Amir and Faizan Majeed. The court made its verdict against case-256, announcing that the perpetrators be subjected to life imprisonment.
Last year, ATC courts had acquitted 11 people that had been nominated in separate cases of the scandal, with four being released in August and seven in September.
The Kasur scandal came to light in July 2015 when Ganda Singh police booked a gang of 15 suspects and arrested three of them on charges of sodomy, extortion and threatening ‘hundreds’ of boys and girls and recording their videos in Hussain Khanwala village.
The gang, according to the FIRs, had recorded videos while sodomising young boys and raping girls and extorted millions of rupees as well as gold jewellery from villagers since 2009. Reportedly, the entire village was aware of the alleged offence but no one dared report it to police as the suspects were allegedly influential.