KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday upheld the death penalty handed down by a trial court to a man for murdering his wife in 2016.

An additional district and sessions court (west) had sentenced Rab Nawaz to death in February last year after finding him guilty of killing his wife, Shabana, at her sister’s house in the Jackson area in August 2016.

The convict through his lawyer had challenged the trial court order before the SHC and after hearing both sides and examining the record and proceedings of the case, the division bench comprising Justice K. K. Agha and Justice Omar Sial dismissed the appeal and maintained the capital punishment.

The bench in its order observed that there were two eyewitnesses of the murder and their statements were reliable and trustworthy.

Deceased Shabana along with her three children, was living with her sister, Rubina, and Rab Bawaz was separately with a son of the couple. On the day of incident he came to meet his wife and after an altercation the he shot dead his wife. Rubina put up resistance to save Shabana but Rab Nawaz hit her on her head with a butt of his pistol.

The bench further observed that the two empties collected by police from the place of incident were confirmed to have been fired from the weapon found in the custody of the appellant when he was arrested shortly after the offence.

The lawyer for the appellant argued that no motive for the murder had been shown by the prosecution, and argued that death sentence could not be awarded in such cases. He stated that the couple had four minor children. However, the bench said that a motive for the murder appeared to be as testified by the two witnesses that the deceased had been seeking divorce.

“The appellant who did not live on the same premises had come from the place where he lived armed with a weapon to the house of the deceased. This reflects intention and pre-meditation. He fired two shots on his wife aimed at her head and chest. This too reflects his intention to murder. When he murdered his wife he had no thought or consideration for depriving his children of their mother. Under these circumstances we find him dis-entitled to any benefit on account of his children in awarding him a lesser sentence,” the bench concluded.

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2021