Khadija Siddiqi officially becomes a barrister

Khadija Siddiqi, a law student who was mercilessly stabbed on a busy Lahore road by her class fellow in May 2013, has officially become a barrister.

She posted a picture of herself on the popular micro-blogging site, Twitter, donning lawyers’ robe.

Holding her degree in her hands, she wrote: “Called to the bar, officially a barrister. Alhumdulilah.”

Ms Siddiqui completed her law degree from the Blackstone School of Law (University of London) this month.

Siddiqi, 24, was stabbed more than two dozen times on a busy Lahore Street while she was picking her six-year-old sister Sofia Siddiqui from school on May 3, 2016.

She was attacked by her class fellow Hussain for reportedly rejecting a proposal. A Lahore judicial magistrate handed down seven-year rigorous imprisonment to Hussain after finding him guilty of attempted murder on July 29, 2017.

However, a sessions court in March 2018 set aside the minor penalties of the convict and commuted the sentenced to five years.

Last year, the Lahore High Court acquitted the convict on lack of evidence.

Then chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar had taken a suo motu notice of the acquittal in June 2018 and forwarded the appeal to another two-member SC bench led by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa.

In Jan this year, the Supreme Court had ordered the arrest of Shah Hussain, uphholding the five-year imprisonment sentence awarded to the culprit by a sessions court.