KARACHI: An antiterrorism court has awarded life imprisonment to a former police head constable for killing two youths and acquitted four policemen due to lack of evidence.

Five policemen — the then head constables Nadeem Hassan, Sarfraz Ahmed, constables Madad Khan, Sher Khan and Faizan Hussain — were booked and charged with killing motorcyclists Ali Shabbir, 22, and Danish Raheem, 20, over suspicion of looting people on May 18, 2015.

The ATC-I judge pronounced his judgement, which was earlier reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge wrote in his order that the prosecution had successfully proved the charges against detained former PC Madad Khan beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The judge observed that in the case of Ghulam Nabi versus State, 2007 SCMR 808 the Supreme Court had observed that the delay in recording confessional statement on the last day of physical remand may justify lesser punishment or life imprisonment, as sufficient to meet the ends of justice.

Therefore, the judge convicted him of committing the double murder and awarded life imprisonment to him with the direction to pay Rs200,000 in compensation to the legal heirs of each deceased.

The convict would undergo an additional one-year imprisonment, if he did not pay the amount.

The court further convicted him of terrorism, handing down life imprisonment to him with the direction to pay a fine of Rs100,000 to the legal heirs of each deceased. On default, he would undergo an additional imprisonment for six months. All sentences would run concurrently.

The court also extended the benefit of Section 382(b) of the Criminal Procedure Code to the convict, who was remanded to jail to serve out the remaining portion of his sentence.

The judge noted that no case was made out against the remaining four accused and exonerated them from the charges. Their bail was cancelled and sureties discharged by the court.

According to the prosecution, Mohammad Danish with his friends Mohammad Ali and Mohammad Bilal had gone to Dhoraji on May 17, 2015. While they were returning home at around 2.15am, a police party of the Bahadurabad police station signalled them to stop at the traffic signal on Tipu Sultan Road, but they allegedly sped away, it added.

It further mentioned that the policemen allegedly opened fire on Mohammad Ali and Danish suspecting that they were criminals and fleeing after looting people.

The victims fell on the ground in front of a bungalow in Al-Hamra Society and were taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, but they succumbed to their wounds.

Later, the five policemen were detained and a case under Sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with the Section 7 (acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 was registered on the complaint of Mohammad Shabbir, father of Danish.

All the former police officials were indicted in the case. However, they pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the trial.

The prosecution examined 10 witnesses, including the complainant, the medico-legal officer who had conducted post-mortem examination of both the deceased and determined the cause of death, and the chemical and ballistics examiners.

In their statements, all the accused denied the allegations levelled against them by the prosecution, stating that they were innocent and had been implicated in the present case with mala fide intentions at the insistence of a particular community.

In his statement, the main accused, former HC Madad Khan said he was not examined by any magistrate, thus whatever was written in the alleged confessional statement was written under instructions of the investigating officer and he was simply required to sign it.

He also denied giving any confessional statement voluntarily, as alleged by the prosecution. However, he did not opt to produce any evidence in his defence nor did he depose on oath to disprove the allegations levelled against him by the prosecution.

State prosecutor Talib Hussain Memon contended that the prosecution had enough evidence available on record to prove its allegations of double murder of two innocent youths in the furtherance of their common intention and also causing terror in society through this act.

He further contended that the post-mortem examination showed that the deceased died from firearm injuries received by them due to firing of ex-PC Madad Khan, leading to cardio-respiratory failure and resulting in their death. However, he argued that the co-accused also shared the common intention. Therefore, he pleaded to punish them all strictly in accordance with the law.

Advocate Abdul Mateen Khan, defence counsel for the main accused Madad Khan, did not dispute the post-mortem report.

Advocate Mushtaq Ahmed, defence counsel for all other co-accused, contended that the charge of sharing common intention on the part of his clients was false, as the same had not been proved since there was no evidence to establish the same.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2019