Cleric acquitted of child abuse.

PESHAWAR -- A child protection court has acquitted a local cleric of the charge of sexually assaulting a minor boy here in Faqirabad area last year.

Judge Wadya Mushtaq pronounced that the prosecution could not prove its charge against the accused, Mazhar Hussain, while the evidence on record didn't connect him with the commission of the offence.

The accused was arrested in Aug last year after the boy's mother and maternal uncle lodged a complaint at the Faqirabad police station accusing a local seminary's cleric of sexually abusing the minor.

The cleric was charged under Section 377 (unnatural offence) of Pakistan Penal Code and Section 53 (child sexual abuse) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act, 2010. The cleric later secured bail from a local court.

Defence counsel Shabbir Hussain Gigyani insisted that his client was implicated in a fake case and that no medical evidence was available for child abuse.

He said the police's investigation officer had also received the record of the accused's mobile phone calls that showed that he wasn't present in the area at the time of the alleged abuse.

The lawyer claimed that the initial police investigation showed that the boy's mother was a habitual complainant and that she had earlier levelled the same charge against another cleric.

He said the seminary in question was...

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