Yasmeen Shah sentenced to two-year jail

SUKKUR: The PPP leader and former Senator Yasmeen Shah has been sentenced for two years imprisonment with Rs50,000 fine in a fake-degree case on Wednesday.

The District and Session Judge Badin, Javed Abbasi, has convicted her guilty of possessing a fake bachelors’ degree, submitted during the nomination for the Senate elections. Reports said after the degree verification by the HEC and decision of disqualification by the ECP, the court has sentenced the former lawmaker for two years of the jail term and a fine of Rs50,000. Meanwhile, the police have taken the criminal, Yasmeen Shah, into custody from the court premises and shifted her to Central Jail Hyderabad. Shah, in 2003 from the PML-Q ticket, was elected as a Senator and is the wife of former Sindh minister Syed Pappu Shah. Later in 2015, the couple, Pappu Shah and Yasmeen Shah, had left the PML-Q and joined the PPP.

It is pertinent to mention that Fahamida Mirza, the then speaker National Assembly, had challenged Yasmeen Shah’s BA degree at the ECP. The fake degree case against Shah was initially heard by an election tribunal, which referred the case to the District and Sessions Court Badin for trial. Earlier, the ECP had disqualified Yasmeen Shah in the fake degree case and directed her to withdraw all the privileges, received being a Senator. The ECP had then filed a reference in the District and Sessions Court Badin regarding the fake degree.