KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Friday dismissed an appeal filed by a convict and upheld his life imprisonment handed down in a murder case.

A sessions court had sentenced Shahzad to life term in December 2018 for killing Irfan Ali in a Malir locality in February 2014. The trial court had acquitted co-accused Mohsin for want of evidence.

The convict, through his counsel, challenged the conviction before the SHC and after hearing both sides and examining the record and proceedings of the case, a single-judge bench headed by Justice Omar Sial dismissed the appeal and maintained the conviction.

The bench in its order said that there were three eyewitnesses in the case and their evidence was simple and confidence-inspiring and even if the police had a gripe against the appellant, no reason was assigned or even argued at trial, which would show any malice that the eyewitnesses have against the appellant to accuse them of the murder falsely.

All preliminary steps, including police arrival on the spot, registration of FIR, recording Section 161 of the criminal procedure code statements of the eyewitnesses and recovery of the bullet casings were done promptly and on the contrary, the testimonies of the two defence witnesses produced by the appellant at trial court did not sound trustworthy, it added.

Referring to the arguments advanced by the counsel for appellant, the bench noted that the contradictions in the evidence of prosecution witnesses were not of such a nature that could upset a conviction.

“The learned trial court has already given concession for the lapses when it did not award a capital sentence to the accused. Three shots having been fired at Irfan Ali reflects the mindset of the appellant he had come to kill”, it concluded.

According to the prosecution, the victim was employed at a cable repairing shop and on Feb 22, he climbed a ladder to reach the affected cable for repairing in the presence of his three colleagues in Jamali Goth when Shahzad, Mohsin and Wali Mohammad came there and appellant had opened fire at Irfan while his accomplices restored to aerial firing.

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2023