India’s Supreme Court frees Pakistani microbiologist Dr Khalil Chishti

In quite a positive development, India’s Supreme Court Wednesday freed aging Pakistani microbiologist Dr Mohammad Khalil Chishti in connection with a murder case. The court said Dr Chishti has already spent one year and four months in prison and no further custody is required.

The Pakistani scientist has fought a 20-year-long legal battle. He came to Ajmer in 1992 to visit his ailing mother. However, he allegedly got himself involved in a brawl in which one of his relatives was killed.

Born in Ajmer to a prosperous family of caretakers of the Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti shrine, Chishti was studying in Pakistan at the time of partition in 1947 and chose to stay there.

Chisti had appealed in the apex court against the verdict of the Rajasthan High Court, which had upheld a trial court’s judgement convicting him in a murder case in Ajmer. The trial court had sentenced the Pakistani national to life.

In April, 2012, Dr Chisthi was granted bail by the Supreme Court and was allowed to visit his home town Karachi. He is now 82 years old and suffers from heart ailment.

In January 2011, he was awarded life imprisonment after an 18-year-long trial. Till then, he had remained largely under house arrest in Rajasthan, his lawyers say. After he was given the life sentence, he was placed in the Ajmer Jail. Some others convicted in the same case had been granted bail.

It is vital to mention here that Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari had written a letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and appealed him to send Dr. Khalil Chishti to Pakistan on humanitarian grounds.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=36064

Posted by Web Desk on Dec 12 2012. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.