ISLAMABAD: The murderer of Noor Mukadam has raised 23 objections on his conviction.

Zahir Jaffer challenged the Islamabad High Court (IHC)’s decision of upholding his conviction by the trial court in the murder case.

He filed an appeal through his lawyer Barrister Salman Safdar in the Supreme Court on April 12, which is yet to be taken up by the apex court’s bench.

In the appeal, he termed the verdict of the IHC division bench erroneous for 23 reasons.

The IHC division bench headed by its Chief Justice Aamer Farooq had confirmed the death penalty of Jaffer last month.

It questioned the conviction claiming that the case was dealt with “differently” than the routine cases.

It stated that the evidence against him was “weak and incomplete”, the prosecution “failed to bring on record solid, concrete evidence”, charge was not proved “beyond reasonable doubt”, the First Information Report (FIR) was registered with a delay, it contains “hearsay evidence”, a key witness was introduced for a “cover up”, the prosecution misused the supplementary statement, there were several missing links in the case. The courts did not evaluate the electronic evidence in accordance with law and the law laid down by the Supreme Court.

The appellant also questioned the “piecemeal” approach of doctors in conducting postmortem of the deceased Noor Mukadam. The mental health of Zahir Jaffer was not properly examined and the convict was not referred to the medical board. How a small Swiss knife was used to behead the deceased, the charge of rape was wrongly invoked against the convict, and he was not given benefit of doubt. The convict was not given fair trial, the media hype influenced the criminal investigation and courts proceeding.

Noor, 27, was found murdered at Zahir’s residence in Islamabad’s upscale Sector F-7/4 on July 20, 2021. A first information report (FIR) was registered the same day against Zahir who was arrested from the site of the murder under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) on the complaint of the victim’s father, Shaukat Mukadam, who is a retired diplomat.

On Feb 24, 2022, an Islamabad sessions court sentenced Zahir to death and awarded 10-year imprisonment to two co-accused Mohammad Iftikhar and Jan Mohammad.

Zahir’s parents - Zakir Jaffar and Asmat Adamji - as well as TherapyWorks personnel, had been indicted by a district and sessions court in October 2021, but were later acquitted by the court when Zahir was sentenced.

Following the verdict, Zahir had approached the IHC in March 2022 challenging his death sentence. However, the IHC last month not only upheld the death sentence but also converted Zahir’s 25-year jail term into another death penalty.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2023