• Court accepts out-of-court settlement
• Lawmaker has already deposited over Rs3m as blood money

KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party MPA Jam Owais and his four servants were acquitted in a case pertaining to the murder of activist Nazim Jokhio after Malir’s District and Sessions’ Court on Thursday accepted the out-of-court settlement between the accused and the victim’s legal heirs.

Jam Owais and his four servants — Muhammad Mairaj, Ahmed Khan Shoro, Muhammad Doda Khan and Muhammad Soomar – were facing the charges of torturing 26-year-old Jokhio to death at the lawmaker’s farmhouse in Malir on Nov 2, 2021.

On Thursday, Additional District and Sessions Judge Faraz Ahmed Chandio pronounced his verdict on the applications filed by the undertrial lawmaker along with the co-accused and legal heirs of the victim, under Sections 345(2) and 345(6) of the Criminal Procedure Code, pleading to accept their out-of-court settlement in the murder and kidnapping case.

Accepting the applications, the judge acquitted detained MPA Jam Owais, Mairaj, Ahmed Shoro, Doda Khan and Muhammad Soomar of the charges of committing premeditated murder of Nazimuddin Jokhio, throwing his cell phone and clothes in a well to conceal the evidence in furtherance of their common intention.

The judge ruled that the offence under the Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code was compoundable.

“MPA Jam Owais has been released from the Malir district prison following his acquittal and subsequent order issued by the court directing the prison superintendent to release him forthwith, if his custody was not required in any other case,” defence counsel Wazeer Hussain Khoso confirmed to the Dawn.

However, the judge ruled that two of them — Doda Khan and Soomar Salar — who had also been charged with kidnapping the victim before his gruesome murder, would face the trial under Section 365 of the Pakistan Penal Code, as this was a non-compoundable offence.

Judicial staffers said that Advocate Mazhar Junejo, who claimed to be an eyewitness of the incident and had pleaded the court to allow him to join the trial, was absent from the court.

On Dec 10, the court had indicted MPA Owais along with his seven guards/servants — Mohammad Mairaj, Saleem Salar, Ahmed Shoro, Doda Khan, Mohammad Soomar, Haider Ali and Mir Ali — for the murder of the young Jokhio after he had resisted houbara bustard hunting and filmed the lawmakers’ Arab guests while hunting in Mr Jokhio’s village.

Surprisingly, later, the state prosecutor moved an application stating that three accused — Muhammad Soomar, Dodar Khan and Niaz Salari (who is still absconding) — may also be also charged with kidnapping the victim.

Interestingly, the prosecutor had argued that the charge against MPA Owais and other accused would remain the same: commissioning of the premeditate murder of Jokhio.

Before the trial could formally be initiated upon indictment of the accused persons, the victim’s legal heirs including his wife Shireen Jokhio, mother Jamiat and elder brother Afzal Jokhio had filed separate pleas supported by their personal affidavits, stating that they had pardoned MPA Owais and other accused in the name of Almighty “without accepting blood money”.

However, later on Ms Shireen demanded that the lawmaker deposit with the court a collective amount of Rs3,058,955 as the share in the blood money for the couple’s four minor children — Rabia, Sabiha, Zainab and Basit. The lawmaker had deposited the amount with the court.

Lawyers said that Niaz Salar was absconding but Saleem Salar had refused the compromise offered by the victim’s legal heirs and opted to face the trial.

They said that the court also dismissed the application filed by the National Commission for Human Rights pleading the court to allow its counsel Jibran Nasir to assist the prosecution in the trial.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2023