KARACHI: An antiterrorism court sentenced on Thursday two accused to life imprisonment in a case of kidnapping for ransom.

The judge of antiterrorism court-I, Bashir Ahmed Khoso, who conducted the trial, found Daniyaluddin and Mohammad Danish guilty of abducting Haris Khan in Gulshan-i-Iqbal in September 2012 and demanding ransom for his release.

The judge also ordered confiscation of the convicts’ property.

The court observed in its judgment that the captive had rightly picked out the convicts during an identification parade before a magistrate and also deposed against them before the trial court.

It ruled the complainant also supported the case of prosecution about the demand for ransom while the mobile phone data and other documentary record also corroborated the evidence presented by the witnesses.

The accused tried to defend themselves by claiming that they had been farmed in the case by police after they failed to pay them bribe but they could not produce anything to establish their claim and the case stood proved against them, the verdict concluded.

According to the prosecution, the accused had kidnapped the victim along with his friend on Sept 13 but released the latter after a while and freed the captive on Sept 15 only after extorting Rs500,000 ransom from his family. The police arrested the accused in November 2012, it added.

A case was registered against the accused under sections 365-A (kidnapping for extorting property, etc.) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 (e) of Antiterrorism Act, 1997, on the complaint of the captive’s father lodged at Gulshan-i-Iqbal police station.

The accused were produced in the court which, after deducting the period of their detention, sent them back to prison to serve out the remainder of the sentence.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2014