KARACHI: A model court has sentenced a mugger to life imprisonment for killing a professor of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) during an armed robbery.

Shaikh Hamd aka Hamad was found guilty of killing microbiologist Professor Saleem Ahmed Kharal, head of the Basic Medical Sciences Institute at the JPMC in the Defence Housing Authority on Dec 30, 2011.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Kamran Atta Soomro of the Model Criminal Trial Court (South) on Wednesday pronounced his verdict reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge, who conducted speedy trial on a daily basis in the case pending trial for over eight years, noted that the prosecution successfully proved the charges against the detained accused beyond any reasonable shadow of doubt.

The judge awarded lesser sentence of life imprisonment to the accused in view of his young age and ordered him to pay Rs300,000 compensation to the legal heirs of the victim.

The accused was also awarded 14-year imprisonment and a fine of Rs10,000 for possessing an unlicensed weapon used in the crime.

However, all the sentences will run concurrently. The court also extended the benefit of Section 382-B (period of detention to be considered while awarding sentence of imprisonment) of the Criminal Procedure Code.

The court issued perpetual warrant for an absconding suspect and kept the case against him on the dormant file till his arrest or surrender before the court.

According to the prosecution, Prof Saleem Ahmed Kharal and his wife were going to attend a wedding ceremony on Dec 30, 2011. Mr Kharal drove his car himself while his driver Inayatullah Khaskheli sat on the rear seat, it added.

It said that when the professor stopped his car at the traffic signal at the Submarine intersection, suddenly the accused emerged and Mr Kharal pulled down the window.

The accused aimed a pistol at the victim and asked to hand over his belongings to him, said the prosecution, adding that the slain doctor’s wife asked the driver to get out of the vehicle and get help, but the accused kicked the door shut and opened fire.

The bullet hit the victim in the right side of his chest while the accused along with his alleged accomplice, who was driving a car parked behind Mr Kharal’s car, started aerial firing and fled, it added.

The court indicted the accused after the investigating officer (IO) submitted a final investigation report charge-sheeting him for committing murder during an armed robbery. He pleaded not guilty and opted to contest.

In his statement, under Section 342 of the CrPC, accused Shaikh Hamd denied the allegations levelled against him by the prosecution in the present case and claimed innocence.

State prosecutor Arif Sitai argued that the accused was arrested in 2015 and during investigation, complainant Inayatullah Khaskheli identified him as the killer of the professor during an identification parade conducted by a judicial magistrate.

He also argued that the complainant, who was the star eyewitness in the mugging and murder case, narrated the whole incident during his evidence before the court, adding that his ocular evidence was confidence-inspiring.

He added that the medical and other evidence also corroborated the prosecution’s version.

Prosecutor Sitai examined nine prosecution witnesses before resting his side and in the concluding arguments claimed that the detained accused had voluntarily led to the recovery of an unlicensed pistol along with four live bullets hidden by him in the bushes near the Usman Ghani mosque in the Seaview area.

Therefore, he pleaded to the court to punish the accused strictly in accordance with the law.

But defence counsel Syed Lal Shah and Mohammad Aqeel Shaikh contended that the prosecution had framed their client in the present case with mala fide intentions for ulterior motives.

They also contended that there were glaring contradictions in the material evidence brought on record by the prosecution since there was no private witness of the recovery of the crime weapon allegedly recovered by the IO on the information of the accused. The ballistic analysis report of the alleged weapon also contradicted the IO’s version, they added.

The defence counsel said the evidence of the complainant being the sole witness could not be relied upon by the court to lead to the conviction of their client.

They also claimed that the accused was already in the “illegal” detention of the police before his arrest in the present case and produced copies of the applications purportedly add­ressed by his mother to the high-ups regarding his unlawful detention.

A case under sections 302 (premeditated murder), 397 (robbery or dacoity with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code was lodged on the complaint of the driver at the Clifton police station. Later, a separate case under Section 23(i)-A of the Sindh Arms Act, 2013 was lodged on the complaint of Sub-inspector Mohammad Afzal Baig.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2019