Lahore (Staff Report): The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday rejected a plea seeking public hanging of Imran — convicted for the rape and murder of seven-year-old Zaina in Kasur area of Punjab.
A two-member bench of the LHC, comprising Justice Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi and Justice Sardar Muhammad Shamim Khan, heard the plea for Imran's public execution.
Ishtiaq Chaudhry, the counsel of Zainab's father, argued before the court that a public execution could be carried out under Section 22 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.
The court, however, rejected the plea and said, "Read Section 22. It states that this is the government's domain and we are not the government."
Imran, who was awarded 21 death sentences in the case, will be executed on October 17 at Lahore’s Central Jail.
Seven-year-old Zainab was kidnapped from near her aunt’s house in Kasur on January 4 and was found dead in a garbage heap five days later.
On January 23, the authorities claimed to have nabbed Imran, a serial killer involved in other such crimes, through a DNA match.
After the police arrested him, Imran reportedly confessed to assaulting eight minor girls at an under-construction site and two others in a garbage heap in Kasur.
On February 17, the anti-terrorism court (ATC) hearing the high-profile case sentenced Imran to death four times.
Appealing against the ATC verdict, Imran claimed innocence before the Lahore High Court and pleaded for the verdict to be declared null and void.
The Supreme Court's Lahore Registry on June 12 dismissed Imran's appeal against the death sentence handed to him for raping and murdering the minor girl.
