KARACHI: A district court on Wednesday awar­ded capital punishment to a man in a 22-year-old case pertaining to a teenager’s abduction, rape and murder.

M. Sabir was found guilty of committing offences punishable under Sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Additional District and Sessions judge (Malir) Shafi Mohammad Pirzada pronounced his verdict, which was earlier reserved after recording the evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge wrote in his order that the murder of the 15/16-year-old girl had been committed in a brutal manner; she was buried at the place of incident with the intention to disappear/screen out the evidence of the offence; therefore, the accused did not deserve any leniency.

The judge found Sabir guilty of abetting/assisting in the murder of the girl by main accused Zahoor Ahmed and held that the “abettor would be liable to same punishment just as main accused”.

According to the prosecution, the complainant had lodged a case regarding the abduction of his daughter under Section 11 and 16 of Enfor­ce­ment of Hadd Ordi­n­ance at district Bahawal­pur in November 1995.

Main accused Zahoor Ahmed, arrested in Baha­wal­pur on March 25, 1996, had disclosed during interrogation to have abducted the girl on the night between Nov 23 and 24, 1995 at the instigation of his companion Sabir with the intention to commit zina and sent her to Karachi along with the co-accused.

After some days, the prosecution added, Zahoor also came to Karachi and both of them subjected her to rape, but Sabir instigated him to kill her when she asked for marriage.

They brought the girl to a house in Bhittaiabad where they strangled her to death on the night between Jan 23 and 24, 1996 and buried her in the courtyard of the said house, the prosecution added.

Advocate Naveed Ahmed Baloch, the defence counsel for Sabir, denied the allegations and claimed his client was innocent and pleaded to acquit him of the ‘false charges’.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2018