KARACHI, May 11: An anti-terrorism bench of the Sindh High Court maintained the penalties of death and life imprisonment awarded to a man and his mother for kidnapping and killing the minor son of a neighbour and distant relative.

According to the prosecution, Mahmood Ali and his widowed mother, Chand Soof, abducted four-year-old Tauqir Ahmad, son of Shabbir Ahmad, from his Quaidabad residence in front of their own house on March 28, 2003. Mahmood demanded a ransom of Rs 2,5000,000 but later reduced the amount to Rs1.5 million. Shabbir could not pay the ransom and lodged a complaint with the police. He suspected Mahmood, who worked for him and stayed in his house, because of voice resemblance. Besides, the phone calls were made invariably when Mahmood, who remained with him most of the time during the tragedy, had gone out.

The police arrested the suspect on March 30, 2003, and disclosed in the course of interrogation that Tauqir had been killed by him and his body wrapped in a chaddar was lying in his house. He led a police party to his Quaidabad house where his mother told the police that she had thrown the body at a garbage dump. She also led the police party to the dump where the body was found.

The case was tried by an anti-terrorism court of Judge Arshad Noor Khan. The prosecution told the judge that complainant Shabbir Ahmad employed Mahmood and also extended financial support to his mother but, motivated by greed, the accused kidnapped and killed the minor son of their benefactor.

The anti-terrorism court convicted the accused and sentenced Mahmood to death under Section 365 and 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorist Act and his mother to life imprisonment under Sections 365-A of the PPC and Section 7 of the ATA. Unable to hire a counsel, a court-appointed lawyer moved an appeal on their behalf.

An appellate bench maintained the convictions and sentences. Only Ms Chand’s penalty under Section 7 of the ATA was reduced from life term to seven years. Her life imprisonment under Section 365-A of the PPC remain intact.