The Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan on Tuesday will hear the bail plea of a poverty-stricken father who has already spent one year of his life in Adiala Jail after being accused of stealing hens.
A two-member bench comprising Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Qazi Faez Isa will hear the case.
According to the details, Muhammad Zahid a poor man from Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) was accused of stealing 15 hens by his ex-employer Raja Sajjad who owned a real estate business in Islamabad.
On April 17, 2018, two months after the incident, Sajjad lodged a first information report (FIR) at Koral police station regarding the incident alleging that an unknown person had stolen his 15 hens, one water dispenser and badminton set from office on the night of February 6, 2018.
The police registered an FIR under 380/457 (PPC, 1860) which is a bailable offence and arrested Zahid on the same day despite the fact that there was neither was any hen recovered nor was there any witness to the theft.
Speaking to a local media outlet, Muhammad Zahid’s 79-year-old father Bradar Khan regretted the brazen injustice and petty attitude of his son’s ex-employer.
“My son was the sole breadwinner for his five children as the whole family moved to Islamabad from Konodas, a small town near Gilgit city across Ghizer river, 10 years ago. We have no money to pursue my son’s case. We have nothing to eat even my son worked at Sajjad’s shop and he was asking for salary Rs8,000, which Sajjad had not paid and rather beaten my son and expelled from him the shop months before accusing him,” he said.
It is pertinent to mention here that the IHC, on January 12, 2019, stated that the petitioner was alleged to have committed theft of valuable articles belonging to the complaint without evidence or recovery of stolen items.