KARACHI: A judicial magistrate on Monday discharged six friends from a case pertaining to the death of a young man who fell from a high-rise in DHA in July.

The six friends — Syed Muhammad Ammar, Usman Ahmed, Muhammad Owais, Uzair Ahmed, Ahmed Jameel and Syed Faaz Akbar — were booked and arrested over the death of their 26-year-old friend, Adil Masood Khan.

Judicial Magistrate (South) Mazhar Ali directed the Karachi central prison’s superintendent to release them forthwith if their custody was not required in any other case.

Earlier, investigating officer DSP Iqbal Raza Sheikh filed an investigation report.

Magistrate asks IO to submit quarterly report

The magistrate in his order wrote that the case was registered under Section 322 (manslaughter) of the Pakistan Penal Code. The court while referring to Section 321 observed that the PPC provision clearly suggested that even if one had no intention to cause death or harm any person, but did any lawful act which became a cause for the death of another person was liable to be punished under Section 322 of the PPC.

“Mens rea is not an ingredient but the most important ingredient is actus reus i.e. doing of any unlawful act which becomes a cause for the death of another person,” he noted.

He observed that at present the entire record available was ‘silent’ in respect of any unlawful act on part of the accused persons.

The court overruled the complainant’s suspicion that her brother and his detained friends might be under influence of any drugs as they partied at the flat obtained on rent by them.

The magistrate pointed out that during the investigation, the internal post-mortem was also not held on the request of the complainant; hence prima facie cause of death was surfaced on record as “fell from height, acute hemorrhagic shock due to head injury leading to cardiopulmonary failure”.

The court agreed with the opinion of the IO as there was no sufficient material available against the accused persons in support of the complainant’s version and “hereby final report in hand is accepted as ‘A’ class”.

But, the magistrate made it clear that in view of the Sindh High Court’s guidelines wherein it had been observed that an ‘A’ class report could not be treated as final report and the same would be treated as interim report. Therefore, he directed the IO/SHO to submit progress report quarterly without fail.

The magistrate ruled that the accused persons are discharged subject to furnishing surety of Rs50,000 each.

A case was registered under Sections 322 (manslaughter) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Sahil police station on the complaint of victim’s sister Warda Masood.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2022