Victims of injustice

Ajmat Ali, a victim of injustice

This newspaper reported on Friday about an extraordinary case of a man who served 16 years in prison without having ever been convicted, simply because he was unable to contact his family and did not have the funds to file an appeal. After the Supreme Court Legal Aid (SCLA) intervened, he was found not guilty of a charge he was wrongly accused of and subsequently released.

The SCLA currently deals with 69 such accused, four of whom have already been acquitted, while 18 others granted bail. Some of them are having a difficult time to reintegrate themselves into society, with some struggling to recover from deep mental trauma even after their release. It's quite unthinkable that had it not been for SCLA, the plight of these people might never have come to light, and they might have been languishing in jail until no one knows when.

As recognised in a High Court ruling, the fact that so many people served—and some still serving—so much time of their life in jail without any trial is "shameful for the State as well as [for] the judiciary." It's just unacceptable that one would be subjected to such gross injustice simply for not having enough money or because of the negligence of authorities concerned.

While there's nothing that can compensate these men for what they lost, we can at least help them overcome their mental trauma and reintegrate into society by facilitating necessary funds, logistics and other support. Furthermore, the government should allocate more resources to the judiciary in order to expedite the disposal of existing cases.