PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has upheld the death sentence awarded to a man and his son by the trial court for killing four women, all sisters, in the interior city of Peshawar over a property dispute around seven years ago.

A bench consisting of Justice Roohul Amin Khan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim rejected a joint appeal of Fazal Qadir and his son, Fazal Hussain, against their conviction by a local court on Oct 30, 2021.

The district and sessions judge had conducted the trial and sentenced two men to death and ordered them to pay Rs2 million compensation each to legal heirs of the deceased. They were also convicted of injuring the son of a slain woman, and got five-year rigorous imprisonment and Rs50,000 fine each.

The murders, which were committed herein the Mohallah Majian in June 2015,had caused a public outcry, while the residents also staged street protests.

Sessions court had convicted man, son of killing four women in 2015

The bench ruled that the trial court had appreciated the evidence in its ‘true perspective’ and reached the right conclusion by holding the appellants guilty of the offence to which no exception could be taken.

It added that keeping in view the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case coupled with brutality of the appellants, the death sentence awarded by the trial court to the appellants should meet the ‘ends of justice’.

The bench observed that the number of firearm wounds suffered by each deceased spoke about the brutality committed by convicts.

It ruled that the medical evidence supported eyewitness account of the murders.

FIR of the crime was registered by the Shaheed Gulfat Hussain (Hashtnagri) police station on June 27, 2015, on the complaint of Mohammad Iqbal, father of the deceased women, under sections 302, 324 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code and section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The complainant claimed that he had a dispute with the accused over a house in the area and had an altercation with them before the murders were committed.

He said his daughters, including Rani, Samreen, Ruqia and Farhana, and grandson Ubaid Ali stepped out on hearing loud noises prompting the four accused, including two appellants, to fire bullets leading to the killing of his daughters on the spot and injury of Ubaid, while he remained unhurt.

Initially, the appellants were convicted by an anti-terrorism court on Oct 2, 2019, and were awarded death penalty on four counts with a collective fine of Rs1.6 million.

However, the Peshawar High Court had set aside their conviction on May 19, 2021, and remanded the case to the sessions court for fresh trial under the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Senior lawyer Mian Abdul Fayyaz appeared for the complainant and contended that the appellants and two absconding accused were directly named in the FIR for killing women.

He contended that the police recovered weapons used in the crime from the two appellants.

The lawyer also argued that the examination of empties seized on the spot confirmed that the bullets were fired by the weapons recovered from the convicts.

He said that all prosecution witnesses had given consistent testimonies, while the defence hadn’t been able to create any doubt regarding the prosecution’s case.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2022