KARACHI: A model court has awarded life imprisonment to two persons, including a film director, for killing their friend in 2013.

Mansoor Mujahid, the director of an award-winning film, and his friend Anab Zehra were found guilty of killing a banker, Faisal Nabi Malik, in an apartment in Defence Housing Authority in June 2013.

Additional District and Sessions’ Judge Kamran Atta Soomro of the model criminal trial court (South) pronounced his verdict reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides during the swift trial.

Both the accused persons were indicted in 2014, but their trial remained pending.

The accused appeared in court on bail. The court cancelled their bail and sent them to prison to serve out their sentences.

The court also extended the benefit of Section 382-B (period of detention to be considered while awarding sentence of imprisonment) of the CrPC to them.

The judge noted that the prosecution succeeded in connecting each and every link of the chain of circumstantial evidence that connected both the accused persons with the victim’s murder.

He added that sharing of a common intention of both the accused was also proved by the prosecution.

The accused were seen by the victim’s driver, Saeed Ameen, while coming out of the place where he had dropped the victim.

The judge found them guilty of committing the offence of murder and handed down life imprisonment to them.

He also ordered them to pay Rs200,000 each as compensation to the legal heirs of the victim. On default, they would have to undergo an additional six-month imprisonment. The judge also sentenced both the accused to one-year imprisonment and ordered them to pay a fine of Rs10,000 each for committing an offence punishable under Section 297 (trespassing on burial places, etc). In case of default, they will have to undergo an additional one-month imprisonment. The case against an alleged absconding suspect, Masooma Abidi, was kept as dormant until her arrest or surrender.

According to the prosecution, Mansoor and his friends were consuming some party drugs at Ms Anab’s apartment and in the meanwhile he allegedly shot dead the victim after a heated argument on June 20, 2013.

The prosecution said that the male accused along with his female partners with their common intention and consultation opened fire on the deceased with an unlicensed weapon and dumped the body in the parking lot of an apartment complex after stabbing and burning it with acid in order to hide his identity. It further mentioned that when an inquiry officer along with some relatives of the deceased questioned the accused, Mansoor confessed to have shot his friend twice while Anab disclosed to have stabbed the victim. They led the police to a place where the body, pistol, daggers, bloodstained pillow and bedspread were found.

It added that Anab further disclosed during interrogation that the deceased had assaulted her a few days before the incident and she wrote it in her diary which was read by Mansoor.

The state prosecutor, Arif Satai, and the complainant’s counsel, Muneer Iqbal, argued that the prosecution brought sufficient evidence against the accused persons, which connected them with the alleged offence. They contended that the accused along with their absconding accomplice committed murder of Faisal Nabi Malik.

Assigning role to the co-accused Anab, the prosecutor contended that after committing the murder she poured acid on the body and then threw it in the parking area of Sunrise Apartments in Clifton.

The defence counsel, Advocates Mohammad Khalid and Rasheed Ahmed Khan, claimed that their clients were innocent and had been implicated in the case due to enmity with the then additional inspector general, Imran Shaukat, who was the ex-husband of the mother of Mujahid.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2019