KARACHI, Aug 5: At least 50 people, including family members, met a condemned prisoner, who is to be hanged on Tuesday morning in Central Prison, Karachi, on the eve of his execution.

Judge Arshad Noor Khan of the anti-terrorism court-3, who on August 2, 1999 had awarded capital punishment to Shahjahan for murdering Prof Zahid Ali Magsi during a robbery, issued on July 23 the black warrant for the execution of the sentence.

The judge authorized the jail superintendent to carry out the sentence in the presence of a Ist class magistrate and a doctor at Fajr prayers on Tuesday.

Besides the death sentence, Shahjahan, a 32-year-old Bengali-speaking young man, was also sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs25,000 for the injuries inflicted upon the professor’s son during a bungled robbery in their Gulshan-i-Iqbal house on May 22, 1998.

Shahjahan, with co-accused Imran Tentwala and Kamran Dakait, both absconding, barged into Prof Magsi’s house around four in the morning. The intruders first entered the room of Abid Ali Magsi, one of the three sons of the professor, and held him hostage at gunpoint, after a short struggle with him. As they dragged him out of his room to the living room, his mother, Prof Suraiyya Magsi, followed by her husband, came out of their room. Accused Shahjahan and his accomplices became jittery and opened fire when Mr Magsi, a professor of accountancy at S. M. Arts College, appeared in the living room. Both the father and the son received bullet wounds and were taken to Aga Khan hospital where Prof Magsi died half an hour after his arrival there. He was hit by a single bullet which went through his chest rupturing his heart, and his son suffered a bullet injury to his left thigh.

Police arrested Shahjahan on July 20, 1998, about two months after the incident. The son and the widow of the professor identified the accused before a judicial magistrate. Later, on July 22, 1999 both of them identified the accused in the ATC-3 while recording their statements.

Later, Shahjahan moved an appeal against his sentences before the Sindh High Court, which dismissed it on December 23, 1999 and accepted the reference regarding the confirmation of his death sentence.

Then the accused preferred an appeal before the Supreme Court, which also dismissed it on June 14, 2000 and maintained the sentences.

Later, the convict filed a mercy petition to the President of Pakistan, who also rejected the petition on April 20 this year.

The superintendent of Central Prison, Karachi, Rashid Saeed, said all arrangements had been completed for the hanging of Shahjahan. Chief Warder Hukum Dad had been appointed for the execution.