KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday set aside the life imprisonment handed down to two Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) workers by an antiterrorism court for killing a DSP and his driver in August 2010.

A two-judge bench comprising Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha and Justice Khadim Hussain Tunio observed that the trial court had committed several illegalities while passing the impugned judgement and that it was in complete departure from the procedural law.

While striking down the conviction order, the SHC sent the case back to the trial court for rewriting of the judgement while assigning cogent reasons for any deviation from the prescribed sentences; and also deciding the fate of appellants at its end while giving its findings on all the offences they had been charged with after hearing the parties.

The bench directed the trial court to complete this exercise within three months under the intimation of the high court.

Matter sent back to ATC for rewriting judgement

In April 2019, the ATC-XII had sentenced Mohammad Ishtiaq alias Policewala and Syed Abu Irfan alias Urfee to life in prison for killing DSP Nawaz Ranjha and head constable Jahangir on M. A. Jinnah Road near the Radio Pakistan building in August 2010. The trial court had also awarded a 10-year term to Irfan and acquitted four co-accused persons for lack of evidence.

Both convicts through their counsel had challenged the trial court’s order and after hearing both sides and examining the record and proceedings, the SHC bench partly allowed appeals.

The bench questioned conviction of one of the appellants awarded under Section 302(c) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and said that they were allegedly armed and had opened fire on the police officials, who were travelling in an official car, and this act prima facie appeared to be done in a cruel manner.

“Therefore, there is not a single circumstance that would attract the provision of S.302(c) PPC erstwhile awarding 10 years, the lowest available sentence without assigning any cogent reasoning or observing any mitigating circumstances besides the falsified recovery of crime weapon which it relied on to acquit him from the offence of possession of the said weapon,” it added.

The bench further noted that the trial court did not assign any reasoning as to why it preferred the applicability of Section 302(c) over 302(b) and in the absence of such circumstances, the conviction could not be sustained, adding that the ATC had also not assigned any reason for not awarding death sentence to appellant Ishtiaq for an offence under 302(b) of the PPC.

Besides the premeditated murder, the appellants had also been indicted under multiple sections of PPC read with Section 7 of Anti-terrorism Act, 1997 but the trial court had failed to record specific findings for such offences.

According to the prosecution, four armed assailants on two motorcycles opened an indiscriminate fire on DSP Nawaz Ranjha’s car and escaped. Ranjha and his driver died on the spot while a woman passer-by sustained injuries.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2022