KARACHI: An antiterrorism court handed down on Wednesday death sentence to a man and sentenced his accomplice to life imprisonment in a case pertaining to rape and murder of a minor girl.

The court found Bashir Ahmed guilty of killing a six-year-old girl after subjecting her to sexual assault while his crime partner Abdul Majeed, alias Bhora, was judged accountable for raping her after kidnapping the victim near her house in Goharabad in F.B. Area in December 2011.

The court also held Bashir guilty in another case of abducting an eight-year-old girl in the same locality.

The judge of the ATC-II, who jointly conducted the trial after clubbing together both cases, read out the conviction orders after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The court awarded death sentence to Bashir on two counts for raping and murdering the girl while the co-accused was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and raping the girl.

Bashir also got life term in another case for abducting an eight-year-old girl in December 2011.

The court in its judgement observed that the evidence against both the accused was very strong as there was no contradiction in the evidence of witnesses and they were consistent on material points.

It came on record through evidence that Majeed brought the six-year-old victim to the house of Bashir and both accused subjected her to sexual assault and then Bashir strangled her to death.

In the second case, the court ruled that after hearing shouts of the girl, the area people along with the police rescued the girl from the house of Bashir and captured him and they also depo­sed against the accused. The court said that the capital punishment was subject to the confirmation of high court.

According to the prosecution, the six-year-old girl was kidnapped on Dec 12 and the accused killed the captive after subjecting her to gang rape and dumped her body in Block 2 in Gulistan-i-Jauhar.

In the second case, Bashir abducted another minor girl, took her to his house and was about to rape her when area people along with the police reached there and rescued the victim and the police arrested the suspect, it added. Later, the co-accused of the first case was also arrested.

Both the cases were registered at the Jauharabad police station. Both the accused were in custody and the court sent them back to prison along with conviction warrants after pronouncement of the judgements.

Published in Dawn, May 21th, 2015

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