KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence handed down to three appellants by the trial court in the kidnapping and murder case of a boy.

The SHC observed that the child was abducted for ransom, murdered and the body was disposed of in a brutal manner and such horrific crimes fully warranted maximum sentence.

An antiterrorism court had handed down death penalty to Shamshair Ali Mirza, Mohammad Salman and Abdul Sattar in May last year for kidnapping 12-year-old Shahid Ali for ransom in January 2021 within the remit of the Saeedabad police station, murdering him and setting the body on fire to conceal their crime.

The convicts through their counsel challenged the conviction before the SHC and after hearing both sides and examining the record and proceedings of the case, the division bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha dismissed the appeals and upheld the capital punishment.

The bench in its judgement noted that whilst ignoring technicalities without causing a miscarriage of justice and using a dynamic approach, it found that the prosecution had proved an unbroken chain of evidence where one end of the same touched the body and other the neck of the accused persons.

The case is based on circumstantial evidence and Mirza, who was arrested in another case, confessed his involvement in the present case and also recorded his confession before a judicial magistrate for abducting and killing the boy along with his two accomplices, it added.

The bench further observed that a retracted judicial confession can be legally admissible and used against its maker in certain circumstances and there was no evidence that such confession was not made voluntarily.

It said that the court had placed reliance on the judicial confession of appellant Mriza as well as against his co-accused subject to there being other corroborative/supportive evidence.

“With regard to sentencing, this is a case where a young child was abducted for ransom, was murdered and whose body was disposed of in the most brutal manner. Namely, he was suffocated, then burnt alive and then stuffed down a gutter. The life of a young child was snuffed out for a few lacs; his future lost; untold misery and trauma brought on his parents which will be never ending. Such acts are an abomination in any society and need to be stamped out”, it added.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2023