KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday upheld the death sentence handed down to a man by the trial court in a double murder case.

A model/sessions court had sentenced Mohammad Qasim to death in January 2020 for killing Mohammad Farooq and his nephew Mohammad Haris over a minor dispute in November 2019 in Abdullah Memon Goth within the limits of the Shah Latif police station.

The convict, through his counsel, had challenged the conviction before the SHC. After hearing both sides and examining the record and proceedings of the case, a division bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha dismissed the appeal and upheld the capital punishment.

The appellant did not press the appeal on merits and only sought a reduction in his sentence from death penalty to life imprisonment on the ground that prosecution could not establish any motive for the killings.

The bench noted that two to three months before the incident in question, the appellant pulled out a pistol during an altercation as he suspected that a relative of the victims had stolen his Wi-Fi router, but the area people intervened and resolved the issue and the same was also reported to the police.

After taking a holistic view of the evidence, it observed that the prosecution had proved the motive behind the killing which was a dispute over the Wi-Fi router.

The bench also said that the appellant was named in the FIR with the specific role of shooting both the victims and there was an eyewitness of the case and his evidence were found to be reliable, while medial and other documentary evidence also supported the oral evidence.

Two innocent persons were murdered over a petty dispute in front of the victims’ house in broad daylight in the presence of their female relatives, it added.

The bench said that based on the particular facts and circumstances of the case, the appellant did not deserve any leniency in sentencing, especially as there were no mitigating circumstances and only aggravating factors that a deterrent sentence was more appropriate one to deter such brutal crimes.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2023