PESHAWAR: A local court on Saturday convicted a man and his son for killing four sisters here six years ago over a property dispute and sentenced them to death along with the payment of Rs2 million compensation each to the legal heirs of the women.

District and sessions judge Ashfaque Taj also convicted the two, Fazal Qadir and son Fazal Hussain, for injuring the son of one of the deceased, awarded them five years rigorous imprisonment along with Rs50,000 fine each.

They were also found guilty of making an attempt on the life of the complainant in the case, Mohammad Iqbal, and were sentenced on that count to five years rigorous imprisonment with five of Rs 10,000 each.

The court ruled that the prosecution had proved its case against the accused and the evidence on record connected them with the commission of the offence.

Peshawar court also orders them to pay Rs2m each to families of deceased

The court also declared two of the absconding accused, Fazal Karim and Hazrat Bilal, as proclaimed offenders and issued perpetual arrest warrants for them.

The killings, which had taken place here in Kachi Mohallah in June 2015, had resulted into a public outcry and inhabitants of the area had also staged protest demonstrations in that connection.

FIR of the occurrence was registered at Shaheed Gulfat Hussain (Hashtnagri) Police Station on June 27, 2015, on complaint of Mohammad Iqbal under sections 302, 324 and 34 of Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The complainant claimed that he had a dispute with the accused over a house in the area and before the occurrence he had an altercation with them.

He alleged that on hearing noise, his daughters, including Rani, Samreen, Ruqia and Farhana, and grandson Ubaid Ali stepped out on whom the four accused started firing, which resulted in deaths of his daughters and injuries to Ubaid, whereas he himself escaped unhurt.

Initially, the two arrested accused were convicted by an anti-terrorism court on Oct 2, 2019, and were awarded death penalty on four counts with collective fine of Rs 1.6 million. However, the Peshawar High Court had set aside their conviction on May 19, 2021, and remanded the case to the sessions court for trial afresh under the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Senior advocate Mian Abdul Fayyaz appeared for the complainant, whereas senior public prosecutor Jehanzeb Khan represented the state.

According to them, both the accused facing trial and the absconders were named in the FIR and that the weapons used in the offence were also recovered from them. The empties recovered from the spot matched with those of those weapons.

All prosecution witnesses had given consistent testimonies and the defence wasn’t able to question the prosecution’s case.

The court ruled that the medical evidence supported the witness story and that some minor inconsistencies pointed out by the defence did not invalidate medical and ocular evidence.

It added that the evidence also confirmed the use of weapons, which recovered from the accused, in the crime.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2021