KARACHI: A sessions court on Wednesday awarded life imprisonment to the father and the grandfather of an 18-year-old girl for murdering her for taking selfies with her male cousin, who was also murdered in Swat in 2018.

Accused Abdul Rahim and his father, Abdul Hakeem, were found guilty of poisoning Marina, a second-year student at the Abdullah College in Karachi, for taking selfies with her cousin Salman Khan in November 2018.

On Wednesday, additional district and sessions’ judge Faraz Ahmed Chandio of the model criminal trial court (South) pronounced his verdict reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge noted that from the facts of the case and material brought on record it had been evaluated that the prosecution had successfully established “honour” to be the motive for the murder of Marina by the accused.

Abdul Rahim, the father of the victim, was produced from prison, while Abdul Hakeem, her grandfather, appeared before the court on bail.

The judge cancelled his bail and remanded both the convicts to prison to serve out their sentences.

However, the court extended the benefit of Section 382-B of the Criminal Procedure Code (considering period of detention while awarding sentence) to Abdul Rahim, who had been behind bars since Nov 25, 2018.

The judge kept the case against three alleged absconding suspects — Abdul Khaliq, Abdul Nasir and Abdul Jalil — on dormant file till their arrest or surrender before the police.

According to the prosecution, both the accused were infuriated on seeing some purportedly questionable pictures/videos of Marina with her cousin Salman Khan.

They first killed Salman at Matta in Swat on Nov 5, 2018. Later, they committed the murder of Marina in Karachi on Nov 7, 2018.

In her statement, the complainant and mother of the victim testified before the court that on Nov 7, 2018 her husband, Abdul Rahim, confined her with the children in a room and took Marina to another room, from where she heard cries of her daughter.

She further deposed that two hours later her father-in-law, Abdul Hakeem, opened the room and she found Marina lying in the bed with foam oozing out of her mouth.

The mother testified that her husband and father-in-law disclosed that Marina had consumed poison, but that they buried her body without letting the mother see her for the last time.

The judge noted that the burial of the victim without medical treatment raised a question that why the accused had not taken her to hospital in an attempt to know the actual cause of death of the young woman.

Defence counsel Tariq Mehmood A. Khan denied the allegations and claimed innocence on the part of his clients and pleaded to the court to acquit them of the charges.

The accused persons also denied the allegations and claimed innocence.

However, state prosecutor Shakeel Ahmed Abbasi contended that there was sufficient circumstantial, ocular and other evidence to establish that the accused had committed the crime and pleaded to the court to punish them strictly in accordance with the law.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2021