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KARACHI: Seven-month-old Mayur Sunil experienced his first Raksha Bandhan festival when his older sister Nomisha and cousin Jaya Ramesh tied the sacred thread around his little wrist with the flowing waters of Chinna Creek as witness at the Shri Lakshmi Narayan temple here on Saturday.

It was a memorable moment for the children’s mother and aunts, who were beaming with a glint of joy in their eyes. Earlier, Mayur’s older cousin Nikhil Ramesh, who held the baby while his sisters tied the red rakhi on his wrist, also got his rakhifrom his younger sister Jaya.

Meanwhile, Faqira Vikash got a rakhi from Radhika Parmar. They were not real brother and sister but Radhika said that she saw Vikash as her protector and wanted to honour him by making him her brother.

Raksha Bandhan, the bond of love and protection between sisters and brothers, is celebrated annually on purnima, a full moon, in the Hindu month of Shravana, which is also commonly known as Sawan in North India. It is the fifth month of the Hindu lunar calendar.

Hindus celebrate the festival of siblings on the full moon of Sawan

There are many myths and legends attributed to Raksha Bandhan, one of which is about Lord Krishna injuring his hand which was quickly bandaged by Daupadi who tore off a strip of cloth from her saree pallu to do the needful and stop the bleeding. She always looked up to him as a brother.

Later, when she was harassed by some rascals who pulled her saree pallu, Krishna came to her rescue. With his extraordinary powers, the pallu kept unwinding as the men pulled without any end to it.

The rakhis used in this sweet ritual were available in abundance in an extensive variety from right outside the temple. You could buy 12 Pakistani rakhis for a hundred rupees and Indian rakhis, brought here in personal baggage, for double the price.

All the vendors were surprisingly Muslim. But then it was also not surprising to find Muslim women also coming to buy the rakhis for friends whom they look up to as brothers.

“In Pakistan, the festival may carry religious significance for Hindus but for Muslims, it is also a cultural festival. I’m going to tie a rakhi around my friend in college, who is always looking out for me,” said Ayesha Mahmood, a customer buying several threads from a stall.

Asked how many were she going to tie around one person’s wrist, she laughed and shared that many of her female friends had also requested her to get a rakhi or two for them as they also wanted to honour someone special.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2025

PTI leaders Zartaj Gul and Ejaz Chaudhry filed appeals in the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Saturday against their convictions by anti-terrorism courts (ATC) in May 9 riots cases.

On May 9, 2023, PTI supporters, protesting party founder Imran Khan’s arrest, staged violent protests throughout the country, following which thousands were arrested.

On July 31 this year, an ATC in Faisalabad sentenced PTI leaders, including Gul, to 10 years of imprisonment for their involvement in the riots. The Election Commission of Pakistan later disqualified her and other PTI lawmakers following their convictions. Chaudhry was convicted in another May 9 case by an ATC in Lahore on July 22 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Gul filed an appeal against her conviction and sentencing in the LHC today. A division bench of the LHC will hear the case on Monday.

The appeal was filed through Gul’s lawyers, Barrister Ali Zafar and Muhammad Hussain, and pleaded the court to set aside her conviction and acquit her in the case.

It said that Gul was not nominated in the case or “found physically participant in the occurrence”. It added that no justification was provided by the prosecution for her being included through the supplementary statement, which it claimed cast doubt on the authenticity of the occurrence which had not been considered at the trial stage.

It stated that the ATC passed the “impugned judgment … in a hasty and slipshod manner”, based on three witnesses who had admitted in cross-examination that they had not nominated her but she was nevertheless convicted on their statements with a hefty punishment.

“The prosecution has failed to make out a case for such a punishment,” the petition argued, adding that the witnesses themselves had many times misstated and “cheated” the trial court with additions and deletions in their statements making their testimonies unreliable, but ultimately all exonerated the appellant.

“The other ATC court at Sargodha has disbelieved the same prosecution witnesses … but this is ignored in making (the) impugned decision,” it said.

It also stated that no evidence for conspiracy had been brought forward on the case file, challenging her punishment under section 120-B of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The petition pleaded that as “the prosecution also failed to establish the involvement of the appellant in the occurrence and instigation/abetment beyond the shadow of doubt, then there were no reasons to award punishment to the innocent appellant.”

It stated that the judgment was against “facts and law and resulted in (a) misreading of justice” and that, being passed hastily, material parts of evidence were not considered “despite the facts that the prosecution failed to adduce unimpeachable evidence and there was (every) chance of false implication”.

In particular, it cited the lack of material evidence to establish the intention to abet, instigate and conspire to facilitate the other accused parties. According to the petition, the investigation was “biased” and “flawed” but this was ignored by the court. It further criticised that more weight was given to witness statements than evidence by the court, failing to “properly appreciate” the prosecution’s evidence.

It added that 77 co-accused had been acquitted based on the same evidence, while Gul was convicted without valid reasoning.

The petition called for the judgment to be set aside as the case had not been proven “beyond the shadow of a doubt” due to a lack of unimpeachable evidence, adding that the evidence contained contradictions. It called the judgment of the court “arbitrary, capricious, indiscrete, non-speaking and without lawful authority based on no evidence”.

The petition noted that Gul was seeking leave from the court to advance further grounds at the time of argument.

Meanwhile, Chaudhry filed two petitions in the LHC through Advocate Mian Ali Ashfaq.

Chaudhry pleaded the court to suspend his sentence and conviction, along with ordering his release on bail.

He further requested the court in the second petition to set aside his conviction and acquit him in the case in the “interest of justice”.

ATC reserves verdicts on two May 9 cases involving Chaudhry, Rashid, Qureshi, others

Separately, the Lahore ATC reserved its verdicts in two arson cases related to the May 9 riots, in which PTI senior leaders Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Dr Yasmin Rashid, Chaudhry and Omar Cheema are accused, with the judge slated to announce the decisions on August 11.

According to Advocates Rana Mudassar and Rana Maroof, who represented the PTI leaders during the hearing, the trials in the cases of burning vehicles outside Rahat Bakery and arson near Shadman Nazar were completed and ATC Judge Manzar Ali Gul reserved his verdict.

They said the verdicts would be issued on Monday.

They said a total of 25 accused were named in the Rahat Bakery case, while seven accused were declared absconders. They added that the trial of 12 accused was completed in the Shadman Nazar police station arson case and five accused were in custody in this case, while one accused had died.

The lawyers said Qureshi, Dr Rashid, Chaudhry, Cheema, Mian Mahmoodur Rashid and other accused were present in the courtroom.

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