A two-member bench headed by Justice Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi announced the reserved verdict on the appeals. The court upheld the death sentences awarded to both convicts for the rape offence.
An Anti-Terrorism Court had sentenced Abid Malhi and Shafqat Bagga to death on March 20, 2021, after convicting them in the high-profile motorway gang rape case. On September 9, 2020, the convicts Malhi and Shafqat raped a woman at gunpoint in the Gujjarpura area while she was waiting for help on the motorway after her car ran out of fuel.
The woman was travelling with her children when their car stalled in Gujjarpura as it ran out of fuel. She called her relative and sent him her location on the motorway. When the relative reached the location, he saw the woman panic-stricken and blood stains on her clothes. The windowpanes of her vehicle were also broken.
The woman told the police that she was waiting for her relative to pick her up and her children when two armed men attacked her. One of them struck the car with clubs, and the other held them hostage at gunpoint.
The attackers then took her and the children to a nearby forested area where they gang-raped the woman. Later, they robbed her of valuables, which included Rs100,000 cash, two gold jewellery pieces, a bracelet, a car registration card and three ATM cards and left her stranded.
The convicts later challenged the Anti-Terrorism Court's verdict before the LHC on March 25, 2021, seeking the reversal of their convictions and sentences. After hearing the appeals, the LHC dismissed the petitions and maintained the death sentences handed down by the trial court.
The horrific incident shook the collective conscience of the entire nation, triggered countrywide outrage and raised questions over the duplicitous nature of a society where sheer savagery lies lurking behind the veil of piousness and morality and nowhere seems to be safe anymore.
The appalling incident also set off a debate on mainstream and social media on behavioural tendencies and the alarming rise in the cases of sexual violence in the country, as well as the inability of the law enforcement mechanism to provide security to citizens as even a drive on a motorway can prove to be perilous.