KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Saturday awarded death sentence to two men for kidnapping and killing a child over non-payment of ransom.

Four accused — Abdul Ghaffar Brohi, Abdullah Magsi, Ali Magsi alias Ali Dino and Zahid Hussain Gopang — were charged with kidnapping four-and-half-year-old Ammar Hussain Jatoi within the remit of the Waleed police station, Larkana in 2012.

On Saturday, the ATC-II judge, who conducted the trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, pronounced his verdict reserved after recording evidence and final arguments.

The ATC hands down life imprisonment to two more accused

The judge noted that the prosecution successfully proved the allegations of kidnapping for ransom against the accused Abdul Ghaffar Brohi and Abdullah Magsi and handed down capital punishment to them.

The judge awarded life imprisonment to accused Ali Magsi and Zahid Hussain and also ordered them to pay Rs500,000 each to the legal heirs of the victim as compensation.

The judge further sentenced them to four-year imprisonment for possessing illicit arms and ammunition. However, all the sentences shall run concurrently.

According to the prosecution, the accused abducted the child, a student of nursery class, when he was playing outside his house in the Sheikh Zayed Colony on March 9, 2012 and drove him away in a car.

Later, they demanded a ransom of Rs5 million for his safe release. But, his body was found from an abandoned house as the family failed to pay the ransom, the prosecution added. The accused were arrested and led the police to the recovery of the child’s body.

Trial transferred due to political interference

On April 25, 2012 the Sindh High Court (SHC) had ordered transfer of the case from ATC Larkana to an ATC in Karachi after complainant Asfar Hussain Jatoi moved an application alleging that then ministers belonging to the Pakistan Peoples Party were influencing the investigation to favour the accused persons.

“All the prosecution witnesses (were) examined; (they) supported that on Feb 13, 2012 the dead body of the child was recovered at the pointation of accused persons, mashirnama was prepared as per direction of Assistant Superintendent of Police, but nothing was brought on record,” the judge wrote in the order.

He added: “In such circumstances the case was transferred to Karachi due to involvement of three Ministers of political party.”

The verdict added that “the mashirnama of the (victim’s) body was prepared, but it was destroyed on political grounds and that record is available in his report under the Section 168 of the Criminal Procedure Code”.

Earlier, special public prosecutor Nazeer Ahmed Bhangwar submitted that from the very beginning of the investigation the police were favouring the accused persons and had tried to hide the facts.

He added that two brothers-in-law of the complainant had seen the four accused persons with arms in the car, as they were taking away the child and had informed the complainant about the incident.

The prosecutor argued that accused Abdullah Magsi had made a phone call to the complainant demanding Rs5m ransom for the safe release of his kidnapped son, but agreed on Rs3.5m. While the complainant was arranging the money the same accused called him the next day and asked him to pick the body of his kidnapped son from a house in Yar Mohammad Colony on March 13, 2013, he added.

He contended that the accused persons were arrested on March 13, 2013 and on their information the police had recovered the body, but the police showed their arrest on March 15 to create doubts and favour the accused. He argued that the evidence fully corroborated the prosecution’s case and pleaded to the court to convict them in accordance with the law.

Advocate Altaf Hussain for the complainant said that the accused persons were influential and politically involved, therefore, under their influence the police did not investigate the case honestly. He added that the complainant had to move an application for re-investigation, which was conducted after great difficulty.

On the other hand, defence counsel Wazeer Hussain Khoso and Safdar Ali Bhutto argued that their clients were innocent, but the police framed them in a false and fabricated case with mala fide intentions.

Five cases under Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 365-A (kidnapping for ransom), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offenders) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 (acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 and Section 13-E of the Arms Ordinance were registered at the Waleed police station.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2019