MANSEHRA: The Peshawar High Court’s Abbottabad Circuit Bench on September 11 set aside the life imprisonment sentence of a cleric who was accused of sexually assaulting a seminary student in the Perhana area of Mansehra district in 2019.
“The lower court had convicted the cleric in 2024, but the Abbottabad circuit bench overturned that verdict,” Advocate Noman Khan Swati told reporters. The two-member bench, comprising Justice Sadiq Ali and Justice Syed Mudassar Amir, announced the decision after hearing arguments from a panel of lawyers, including Shad Mohammad Khan Advocate, Noman Khan Swati Advocate, and Sardar Waqarul Muluk Advocate.
Assistant Advocate General Mohammad Shoaib and Advocate Yasir Hadi appeared on behalf of the complainant seminary student before the court. Swati said that in the widely publicised case, an additional session’s judge in Mansehra had handed down life imprisonment to Maulana Shamsudden after the father of one of his students accused him of sexual assault.
The defence lawyers argued that their client was innocent and had never committed any offence. They pointed out that the DNA test report had contradicted the complainant’s claim, which led the Abbottabad bench to acquit the cleric. He further alleged that a group of “so-called liberals” had used the case to malign religious seminaries in the country.
Published in The News on September 12, 2025.
