A model court in Karachi on Thursday sentenced a man to death for raping a woman and killing her along with three of her family members for refusing his marriage proposal in 2010.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Kamran Atta Soomro of the model criminal trial court (south) pronounced the verdict in the eight-year-old case after a speedy trial. The judgement was reserved after the court recorded the evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge handed down capital punishment to the convict, identified as Iftikhar Ahmed alias Badshah, and also ordered him to pay Rs1.2 million in compensation to the legal heirs of the victims.

According to the prosecution, the bodies of Khalid Haroon along with his wife Aneela, daughter Maryam and son Danish were found at their flat in the Chapal Luxury Beach Apartments on September 8, 2010. It informed the court that all the victims were hit in the head with a blunt instrument.

During the course of the investigation, police arrested Ahmed, who was a friend of Danish and had been living with the family as an ‘adopted’ child, it added.

State prosecutor Atif Sitai argued that the accused had disclosed that he wanted to marry Maryam, a student in her early 20s, but the family refused and also kicked him out of the house.

He further said that Ahmed later apologised and started living with the family again. However, the convict one day subjected the girl to sexual assault before killing her along with her parents and brother while they were asleep.

Sitai said some relatives had visited the family to exchange Eid gifts with the slain girl earlier that evening and Ahmed was also seen living in the house. He argued that enough evidence was available on record to connect the accused with the commission of the offences alleged by the prosecution, including rape and murder of the four people, and pleaded the court to punish him strictly in accordance with the law.

The convict had denied the allegations and claimed his innocence in his statement recorded under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Defence counsel Gul Hassan Khaskheli contended that his client had been "framed" in the case and pleaded the court to acquit him of the charges.

A case was registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 397 (robbery or dacoity, with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt) and 376 (punishment for rape) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Boat Basin police station on the complaint of victim Khalid Haroon’s brother, Riaz Mahmood.