NAROWAL: A Sialkot court sentenced an influential person to death on three counts in a 2008 murder case of three transgender persons.

Ghulam Haider, a resident of Naya Adalat Garha in Sialkot, had submitted an application to the police on Nov 5, 2008, that unidentified armed men had shot and killed his transgender son, Mazhar Hussain alias Jura, along with two friends, identified as Aamir Shahzad and Abdul Jabbar alias Jhara.

The Ugoki police had registered a first information report of the murder against unidentified persons.

The police investigated the blind murder and found Ahmed Bilal Cheema responsible for shooting dead the three transgender persons over an argument. However, the suspect fled to the US in January 2009.

According to police sources, Cheema is the son of former provincial minister Ajmal Cheema and nephew of former Sialkot district nazim Muhammad Akmal Cheema. When the suspect voluntarily returned to Pakistan in July this year, the Sialkot police arrested him at the airport. They completed the investigation report and submitted it in court along with the evidence.

On Dec 24, Sialkot District and Sessions Judge Jazila Aslam sentenced Cheema to death on three counts and ordered payment of compensation worth Rs500,000 to the relatives of each of the victims. The court ordered the accused to be imprisoned for another six months in case of non-payment of the compensation amount.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2022