KARACHI: Convict Shahrukh Jatoi, who was sentenced to death by an antiterrorism court but later the high court commuted it into life term in the 2012 Shahzeb murder case, was on Monday shifted back to prison from a private hospital where he had been staying for the past several months.

A source in the prisons department told Dawn that he had been shifted back to the Karachi central prison.

Sources said that Shahrukh Jatoi was shifted to the private hospital in Punjab Colony around eight months ago reportedly in alleged violation of the rules and procedures for such an admission.

The sources said that Jatoi was shifted to a little known hospital near Gizri after getting permission from the Sindh home department.

The murder convict spent eight months at health facility.

Shahrukh Jatoi was involved in the killing of young Shahzeb, the only son of a retired DSP, in Defence Housing Authority in December 2012. An ATC had handed him death sentence in 2013.

In 2017, the complainant side had ‘pardoned’ Shahrukh Jatoi under the country’s Qisas and Diyat law. However, in 2018, the Supreme Court of Pakistan took notice of it. Subsequently, his death sentence was converted into life imprisonment by the Sindh High Court.

When he was in prison, he reportedly enjoyed all the luxuries of life, which had prompted the then chief justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar to pay a surprise visit of the prison.

When the then CJP Nisar visited the prison it was reported that he was enjoying a good life in the jail as he had a mobile phone, refrigerator, television set and other facilities in his barracks.

The former top judge of the country had expressed his extreme displeasure over the jail officials for providing such luxuries to an inmate.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2022