KARACHI, June 30: An accused man in a notorious case involving the murder of an elderly couple and their son by their daughter and her paramour in 1999 was let off by the Sindh High Court as having served out his 10-year jail sentence.
Wasim, the nephew of main accused Farhan, was also sentenced to pay a fine of Rs225,000 or undergo rigorous imprisonment for another two and-a-half years by an anti-terrorism court that tried the case.
Advocate Akhtar Jamal, Wasim’s counsel, submitted before a division bench comprising Justices Rana M. Shamim and Ghulam Dastgir A. Shahani that his mother had died during his imprisonment and his father was in a precarious condition. The accused was too poor to pay the fine. Besides, if he was given the benefit of remissions announced from time to time since his incarceration in 1999, he could not be kept behind bars any more. The bench summoned the jail record and allowed the release of the accused after remitting the fine.
According to the prosecution, Nawab Hussain, his wife Abrar Begum and their 25-year-old son Faheem were killed by Asma Nawab, her boyfriend Farhan and their associate Jawaid on the night between January 2 and January 3, 1999, at their Saudabad residence. The accused first overpowered Faheem, tied his hands and pasted tape on his mouth. The elderly couple was similarly disabled. Their throats were later slit by the accused with a sharp-edged knife.
The motive behind the triple murder was the parents’ opposition to marriage between Asma and Farhan. They wanted her engagement with her cousin. All three accused were sentenced to death by the trial anti-terrorism court. Their appeals against the conviction and sentences are pending in the high court. Wasim’s appeal was separated from the other appeals for disposal.
Land allotment
Justice Arshad Noor Khan of the high court on Monday dismissed as not maintainable a suit alleging allotment of 80 acres of land abutting the Chowkandi graveyard in Malir.
The plaintiff, Akhtar Ali Khan, director of the Precious Industrial Park (Pvt) Limited and father of Kamran Tessori of the Tessori Jewellers, said the land was allotted to him by the land utilisation department in June 2006 for development of an industrial park.
Citing the revenue and land utilization departments, the city district government of Karachi and the Malir Development Authority as defendants, he expressed the apprehension that the allotment may be cancelled by the new government. However, he said none of the defendants had issued him a notice so far.
Appearing for the Malir Development Authority, Advocate Munirur Rehman said that the land claimed by the plaintiff was part of the graveyard, which was a heritage site. The Karachi Development Authority, which had since been merged into the city district government, had earmarked the land for unspecified ‘amenity purposes.’
Rejecting the plaint under Order 7 (Rule 11) of the Civil Procedure Code, the court observed that a suit could not be maintained on assumptions, apprehensions, surmises and conjectures. It was not maintainable in the light of the plaintiff’s own admission that he had received no cancellation notice by any of the defendants.
Accountability cases
A division bench of the high court, meanwhile, adjourned the hearing of a petition moved by chairman of the defunct National Development Finance Corporation for termination of two accountability cases against him under the National Reconciliation Ordinance to enable his counsel to produce documents showing that the cases were politically motivated.
Maula Bux Abbasi was first detained under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance after the ouster of the second Benazir Bhutto government in 1996 and subsequently booked for advancing unsecured or inadequately-secured loans amounting to Rs109 million to favourites. He was declared an absconder and sentenced for three years for evading trial.
Announcing its judgment in the cases in respect of other accused, an accountability court held that the charges were evidently motivated by political considerations and fell within the purview of Section 7 of the NRO.
Questioning the trial court’s ruling, the National Accountability Bureau said the cases involved banking offences and were not liable to be quashed under Section 7 of the NRO.
Mr Abbasi is contesting the NAB appeal through Advocate Adnan Karim. Further hearing was adjourned to a date in office.
The bench consisting of Justices Rana M. Shamim and Ghulam Dastgir A. Shahani also restrained bank authorities from harassing an alleged loan defaulter, Anwar Ahmad, and issued notices in his petition for July 7.
Housing society
Another division bench comprising Justices Yasmin Abbasy and Bin Yamin adjourned a plea against balloting for the managing committee of the Rizvia Cooperative Housing Society.
On behalf of the petitioners, Advocate Amir Aziz Khan submitted that only one-third of the committee members could be elected at a time. The voters list had not been displayed as required by the rules and the polling station had been shifted from Nazimabad, where over 1,700 members of the society reside, to Scheme 33, which did not have more than 68 voters. The candidates’ list also has not been drawn in accordance with the rules. He sought an interim order to restrain the administrator from conducting the polls.
The bench adjourned the hearing to July 4 to enable the advocate-general to file a reply.
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