KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Tuesday awarded death sentence to two accused, said to be associated with the banned militant outfit Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan, in a case pertaining to sectarian killing of a lawyer.

Accused Ishaq, alias Bobby, and Mohammad Asim, alias Capri, were found guilty of murdering Sindh High Court lawyer Syed Ameer Haider Shah on sectarian grounds in 2015.

On Tuesday, the ATC-XVI judge pronounced his verdict reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge also handed down a collective sentence of 10 years and six months imprisonment to each convict.

Furthermore, the judge ordered each of the convicts to pay Rs260,000 as a fine.

The court extended the benefit of Section 382-B (considering the period of detention while awarding sentence) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

However, their sentences will be subject to confirmation by the Sindh High Court.

According to the prosecution, Advocate Shah had left his Gulistan-i-Jauhar residence for his office in PECHS on Aug 28, 2015. It said that when the lawyer reached Hasan Square, three armed motorcyclists opened fire on his vehicle on the main University Road and escaped.

Advocate Shah received five bullets and was rushed to the Al-Mustafa Hospital, where the doctors pronounced him dead on arrival, the prosecution added.

Initially, the investigating officer of the case, Inspector Zulfiqar Ali Bajwa, had filed an investigation report, recommending to the court to close the case in A-class since the police were clueless about the accused persons. An A-class report pertains to a case in which the accused persons are ‘unknown’ or ‘untraceable’.

Later Ishaq, alias Bobby, and Asim, alias Capri, were arrested in connection with other cases. During investigation they also disclosed their involvement in the lawyer’s murder.

Subsequently, the IO filed an investigation report, under Section 512 of the CrPC, charge-sheeting both the accused in the present case.

During the trial, statements of the accused were recorded under Section 342 of the CrPC, in which they denied the allegations levelled against them by the prosecution. Both the accused claimed that they were innocent and had been framed in the present case.

Moreover, accused Asim deposed that he was already picked up by personnel of the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) and was detained by them, adding that his wife had sent applications to the authorities concerned seeking his whereabouts.

The defence counsel — Munawwar Ali Talpur, Ghulam Rasool Soho and Mohammad Khan — contended that their clients were innocent, adding that the first information report of the incident was lodged by the complainant, a clerk of the victim, after two days.

They contended that the delay was deliberate on the part of the complainant for cooking up the case against the accused persons. They asked the court to absolve them from the “false and frivolous charges”.

On the other hand, the prosecution produced 12 witnesses, including an eyewitness of the murder, to record their testimonies.

State prosecutors Ahmed Raza and Ghulam Murtaza Maitlo contended that there was sufficient evidence on record to connect the role of the detained accused persons with the commissioning of the crime alleged against them by the prosecution.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2020