PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has set aside the sentence of death awarded by a trial court to two people for killing a young man in Charsadda district four years ago, and ordered their release.

A bench consisting of Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim and Justice Sahibzada Asadullah accepted the appeals of Akhtar Ali and Johar Ali, both residents of Charssada, against their conviction for the murder and declared that the prosecution had failed to prove charges against them.

An additional sessions judge of Charsadda had convicted the two on Nov 19, 2022, and awarded death sentence and a fine of Rs500,000 each to them.

The FIR of the murder was registered at the Parang police station in Charsadda on Feb 21, 2019, on the complaint of Haleem Khan, brother of the deceased Muzzamil.

Accepts appeals of convicts

The appellants were accused of killing the deceased and dismembering the body.

While the upper part of the body was found in a graveyard, the police claimed the recovery of the rest on the pointation of the two appellants.

The prosecution claimed that the mobile phone of the deceased was recovered on the pointation of the appellants.

It added that one of the appellants, Akhter Ali, had recorded a confessional statement with a magistrate under the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The prosecution claimed that the motive behind the murder was that the appellants had an adulterous affair with the deceased, who later asked the two for money to stay silent.

Advocates Khizar Hayat Khazana, Barrister Azam Khan and Jawad Khan appeared for the appellants and contended that their clients were falsely implicated in the case.

They contended that the confessional statement of Akhter Lai could not be relied on as the relevant magistrate didn’t fulfil the legal requirements before recording it.

The counsel said that even in that statement, appellant Akhter Ali had claimed that the deceased was killed by the other appellant, while he was just present at the place of the murder.

Mr Khazana said that the axe and knife that the police claimed of have recovered on pointation of the appellants didn’t carry blood stains so it couldn’t be confirmed that the same was used in the crime.

BAIL REJECTED: A single-member high court bench rejected the bail petition of a faith healer (pir) arrested on the charge of swindling people.

However, Justice Shahid Khan directed the trial court to ensure the early conclusion of his trial preferably within four months.

An FIR was registered against the accused, Abbas Ali, at the Kokarai police station in Swat district on April 3, 2023, on the complaint of citizen Umar Farooq.

The complainant said the accused had received Rs1.6 million from him by pretending to be a spiritual person and claiming that the said amount would be doubled.

The bench observed that the accused faced multiple allegations of the same nature in two other FIRs lodged by the affected people.

The bench observed that though the offence did not fall under the prohibitory clause of Section 497 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the allegations against the accused were distinguishable rather heinous in nature, which had driven the court to the conclusion not to exercise its judicial discretion in his favour.

It added that the accused defrauded people in his area.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2023