TikToker Ayesha Akram, the victim in the 2021 Minar-i-Pakistan assault case, has pardoned all suspects charged with assaulting her.
The victim appeared before the court on June 3 and submitted an affidavit in which she said she did not wish to pursue the case further as she had forgiven “all her suspects for the sake of Allah and his Holy Prophet (PBUH)”.
The female TikTok added that she had “no objection” to the suspects’ acquittal and wanted to record the statement “of her own consent and without any fear or threat.”
The official order was issued by Additional Sessions Judge Gul Abbas on June 25.
Case history
In August 2021, a video of a woman being sexually assaulted by a large group of men at Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore on 14 August, Pakistan’s Independence Day, went viral on social media.
Sections 354-A (assault or use of criminal force against a woman and stripping her of her clothes), 382 (theft after preparation made for causing death, hurt or restraint in order to commit the robbery), 147 (rioting) and 149 (unlawful assembly) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) had been included in the FIR. The case was in the court since then and many accused had been acquitted in multiple hearings over the years.
