RAWALPINDI, Dec 23: An additional sessions judge (ASJ) here on Tuesday awarded life imprisonment to a man after convicting him of murder.

ASJ Khalid Mehmood Ranjha sentenced Mohammad Qadeer, a resident of Murree, to life imprisonment for shooting dead a man named Banaras in 2006.

The court directed the convicted murderer to pay Rs100,000 as compensation to the heirs of the deceased, and in case of failure to pay the amount, the convict would have to undergo six more months of rigorous imprisonment.

According to the prosecution, Qadeer went to the house of Banaras and asked him to come out to settle the issue of the latter’s alleged illicit relations with a woman from his family. As Banaras stepped out, the convict shot him dead.

Separately, two other additional sessions judges acquitted three men allegedly involved in two different murder cases.

In the first case, ASJ Mustafa Tanveer Sifwat absolved Hassan Anwar of the charges of strangling Junaid Ashiq with his waist band after allegedly committing sodomy.

The court found evidence insufficient to convict the accused and ordered his release, if he was not wanted in any other case. Kalar Syedan police had booked Hassan in 2007 for killing Junaid.

In yet another murder case, ASJ Rana Mohammad Ali acquitted Ghos Ali and another accused, whose name could not be learnt, in a murder case registered with the Kahuta police earlier this year, as the prosecution could not produce enough evidence against the accused. Meanwhile, Anti Terrorism Court No. II Judge Sakhi Mohammad Kahot deferred the hearing in the case of a plot against the former president till January 3 after the defence lawyers did not turn up to question some prosecution witnesses.