KARACHI: A sessions court has sentenced a woman and her male accomplice to life in prison for killing her husband in 2017 with the connivance of other co-accused persons and falsely presenting his death as a result of cardiac arrest.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (West), Syed Nadeem Zafar Hashmi, found Fauzia, the wife of the deceased, and her friend, Talah alias Aun, guilty of killing Allauddin by strangulating him in his house.

While taking a lenient view by not awarding the death penalty, the court observed that the deceased’s wife, with the help of co-accused persons, had planned to kill her husband. In such cases, capital punishment was generally not considered appropriate for the prime accused, particularly when the accused was a woman, it added.

The court considered it even more relevant in this case, where the conviction was based largely on circumstantial evidence. Therefore, despite the prosecution having successfully proved its case beyond reasonable doubt, Fauzia and Talah were convicted under Section 265-H(ii) of the Criminal Procedure Code for the offence under Section 302(b) of the Pakistan Penal Code, as Tazir, and were sentenced to imprisonment for life.

Her next-door neighbour also jailed for life

Additionally, the court directed the convicts to pay compensation of Rs500,000 each to the legal heirs of the deceased.

Regarding the proclaimed absconder, Muhammad Zafar alias Supari, the court ordered that the case file would remain dormant until he was arrested and produced before the court.

The court noted that the complainant had no prior enmity with the convict, which showed that there was no apparent reason to falsely implicate the accused persons. It further observed that the testimony of eyewitness, Anshara, the daughter of the deceased, along with other circumstantial evidence, established that the prosecution had successfully proven its case against the convict.

The court noted that there was no evidence suggesting why a daughter would testify falsely against her own mother.

Explaining the motive behind the murder, the court observed that witnesses had deposed that Fauzia had an extramarital affair with Talah, who lived next door. The deceased’s daughter also testified that she had seen her mother holding the legs of her father while the accused Talal and his accomplice Zafar strangled him with a dupatta.

The court noted that the medico-legal officer had confirmed the unnatural cause of death. The medical report stated that blackish-blue marks were found on the neck and other parts of the deceased’s body and suggested that he had been murdered.

According to the prosecution, the complainant was informed about the sudden death of his younger brother by his sister-in-law, who claimed that the deceased had died of a sudden cardiac arrest. However, the complainant stated that while performing the bath (ghusl) of the body, he noticed blackish marks of violence on the head and other parts of the body.

A case was registered at the Pakistan Bazar police station under Sections 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2025