January 06, 2009	Tuesday	Muharram 08, 1430

KARACHI, Jan 5: An additional district and sessions judge released a man convicted minutes earlier in an attempt-to-murder case when it emerged that the undertrial’s length of stay in jail exceeded the prison term awarded on Monday.

The additional district and sessions judge (south) sentenced the man to five years in prison when the convict entered a guilty plea.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs5,000 on the convict. In case of non-payment of the fine, he would undergo an additional three-month imprisonment.The prosecution said that Abdul Rahman attacked Mohammad Yousuf on March 14, 2003 with a sharp instrument in the limits of the Clifton police station. However, he was arrested shortly after the incident and was remanded in judicial custody on March 18, 2003.

A case was registered against the accused under Section 324 (attempt to commit qatl-i-amad) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Clifton police station on the complaint of the victim.

However, the release order of the convict was issued because he had already served the length of the prison term handed down on Monday.

The court gave him the benefit of Section 382-B (period of detention to be considered while awarding sentence of imprisonment) of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Meanwhile, the judge of the special banking court on Monday disposed of an application regarding the unlawful shifting of Abdul Munaf Kalia, his brother, Hanif Kalia, and Javed Khanani to Lahore as the jail authorities told the court that no such move was made and all suspects were in their custody.

Earlier, the suspects’ counsel, Shaukat Hayat, moved an application stating that his clients were being shifted to Lahore without the permission of the court.

The Federal Investigation Agency had arrested the suspects on charges of illegally transferring billions of dollars abroad. Later, they were remanded in judicial custody.

Family slaughter case

A judicial magistrate (central) on Monday recorded statements of two prosecution witnesses under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code in the murder case of a woman and her three children in New Karachi.

Seeman, 38, wife of Jameel, and her three children — eight-year-old Saima, six-year-old Osama, and five-year-old Ramsha — were found slaughtered in their house on December 13.

The police arrested the suspects, 20-year-old Zubair Ahmed, and his teenage friend Nabeel, on December 16 after three days of investigation.

The investigation officer of the case produced two shopkeepers in the court of judicial magistrate Abdul Sattar.

The witnesses in their statements said that the suspects had purchased a knife a couple of days ago before the incident and left a DVD player after the incident at their respective shops.

The prosecution added that Zubair had masterminded the multiple murders and during the initial interrogations he confessed to having killed the woman and her children since the deceased’s husband had “illicit relations with his mother for the past several years” which prompted him to take revenge.

A case (FIR 343/08) was registered under Section 302/34 (murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Khwaja Ajmir Nargi police station on the complaint of Jameel.