Former senator Yasmeen Shah jailed in fake degree case

F.P. Report

BADIN: Former senator Yasmeen Shah was arrested from the courtroom on Wednesday after District and Sessions Judge Badin Farooq Ahmed Abbasi sentenced her to two-year imprisonment and awarded Rs5,000 fine in a fake degree case.

Yasmeen Shah is the wife of former Sindh minister Syed Pappu Shah. She was elected senator on PML-Q ticket in 2003 while in 2015 Pappu Shah and his wife Yasmeen Shah quit the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional and joined the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

The ECP had disqualified Yasmeen Shah in the fake degree case and ordered her to withdraw all the privileges from her on the application of former National Assembly speaker Fehmida Mirza.

The ECP had then filed a reference in the District and Sessions Court Badin regarding the fake degree. The court convicted the former senator and Yasmeen Shah was arrested from the courtroom and shifted to jail.

Earlier, in its detailed verdict, the ECP pointed out that Yasmeen had submitted a fake Bachelor of Arts degree at the time she was elected senator in 2003.

Former National Assembly speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza had filed a petition against Yasmeen.A five-member bench of the polls supervisory body headed by Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Sardar Raza Khan heard the case.

The bench cancelled the notification through which Yasmeen was declared a senator. The former senator and her husband Ali Bux Shah aka Pappu Shah, an influential couple of Badin, lost both the 2008 and 2013 general elections.