November 01, 2008	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 2, 1429

KARACHI, Oct 31: An anti-terrorism court on Friday sentenced a woman and her accomplice to life imprisonment in a four-year-old girl’s kidnapping for ransom case.

The judge, Abdul Ghafoor Memon of ATC-II, pronounced the verdict after recording final arguments from both sides.

The court found Samreen alias Shahnaz Kawal and Shahid Ali, stated to be her husband, guilty of kidnapping Hayka in Liaquatabad for ransom. The judge also ordered confiscation of their property.

The judge observed that the prosecution had successfully proved its case against the accused by providing ample evidence and witnesses in court.

According to the prosecution, 24-year-old Samreen got married to 62-year-old Saifullah Khan Niazi, allegedly to grab his property. Mr Niazi is the grandfather of the kidnap victim.

However, Mr Niazi divorced Samreen after some time. She later married Shahid Ali, according to the prosecution’s claim.

On Nov 11, 2007, Samreen and Shahid kidnapped the girl in the limits of the Super Market police station and took the child to Hyderabad, demanding a ransom of Rs30 million from the victim’s family.

The family informed the police about the incident. The kidnappers kept the girl in a rented house at Hyderabad for four days.

However, the police located the place with the help of phone calls made by the accused to the victim’s family.

The investigation officer, along with the local police and the victim’s family, raided the house on Nov 15 and recovered the girl, arresting the man and the woman.

A case (FIR No 165/2007) was registered under Section 365-A/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code and under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act against the accused on the complainant of the victim’s grandfather, Mr Niazi, at the Super Market police station.

The prosecution produced 12 witnesses in court.

In final arguments, the complainant’s counsel, Mazhar Qayyum, argued that the police, along with the victim’s family, recovered the girl from the possession of Rizwan Ahmed, the owner of the house where the girl was kept, and that the accused had rented the home from Rizwan and kept the girl in the house.

He submitted that the prosecution had proved the involvement of both the accused in the case by providing sufficient evidence in the court and requested to award them maximum punishment.

Special public prosecutor Taseer Khan adopted the arguments of the complainant’s counsel.

Defence lawyer Mushtaq Ahmed maintained that the accused did not demand the ransom as the subscriber identity module (SIM) used during the incident was not registered on the names of the accused and added that the police had made no entry regarding the recovery of the girl.