KARACHI: A sessions judge on Friday awarded life imprisonment to a convict for killing his co-worker after a botched rape attempt.

M. Sabir was found guilty of abducting the woman and strangling her to death for resisting a sexual assault within the remit of the Gizri police station in 2009.

On Friday, the additional district and sessions judge of the model criminal trial court (South) pronounced his judgement reserved earlier after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

Judge Kamran Atta Soomro wrote that the prosecution had successfully established the charges against the detained accused without any reasonable shadow of a doubt.

He also ordered the convict to pay Rs100,000 in compensation to the legal heirs of the victim or undergo an additional six-month imprisonment on default.

According to the prosecution, the victim worked as a maid at a bungalow in Gizri, where the accused also worked as a cook.

It further mentioned that the victim went to work on Feb 17, 2009, but did not return home.

Sabir was taken into custody on suspicion, who later disclosed that he had strangled her to death for putting up resistance to a sexual assault attempt and kept her body in the neighbouring bungalow, it added.

Later, the police recovered her body on information obtained from the accused.

He was booked and arrested in a case registered under Sections 365-B (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel for marriage, etc) and 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

During the trial, the accused denied the allegations before the court and pleaded not guilty.

His defence counsel Abdul Irfan contended that complainant Mohammad Abdullah, who was a brother of the victim, had her murdered to usurp her property.

However, state prosecutor Mohammad Arif maintained that there was sufficient evidence available to connect the detained accused with the commissioning of the offence, including recovery of the body while statements of prosecution witnesses also corroborated the evidence. He asked the court to punish the accused strictly in accordance with the law.

Murderer gets life imprisonment

The same court, meanwhile, also awarded life imprisonment to a convict in a murder case.

Pitrus Masih, alias Gagga, was found guilty of stabbing Gulfam Masih to death over a dispute in April 2006.

The judge also ordered him to pay Rs100,000 in compensation to the legal heirs of the victim or serve six-month additional imprisonment on default.

According to the prosecution, Gulfam had asked Pitrus not to smoke hashish at the door of his house upon which a scuffle broke out between them.

The accused attacked him with a knife causing injuries to Gulfam, who later died.

A case was registered under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Mehmoodabad police station.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2019