KARACHI, Feb 14: The Sindh High Court expressed concern on Thursday that ever since the crimes of car hijacking, gangrape, robbery with murder and Zina had been deleted from the schedule of the Anti-terrorism Act, these offences were on the rise.

A division bench, comprising Justice Ghulam Nabi Soomro and Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany, expressed the concern while dismissing the acquittal appeals of two police constables who had been convicted and awarded 10 years’ imprisonment in a robbery case by the ATC-III.

The convicts, Abdul Khaliq and Zahid, head constables, were arrested on the complaint of Imran Ahmed, resident of Askari IV in Rashid Minhas Road.

The complainant had lodged a report at Buffer Zone police station that when he visited his daughter’s house at night on August 31, 2000 in North Karachi, two armed men appeared from nowhere in the dark in front of his daughter’s house.

One of them had tried to snatch the car key from him at gunpoint and the other tried to rob his wife of jewellery while she was pressing the call bell. In the meantime, the armed man trying to snatch the car key was overpowered by the complainant, who was then joined in by the neighbourhood people. The culprits were given a big thrashing before being handed over to police.

Dismissing the convicts’ appeals, the court however reduced their sentence from 10 to seven years. AAG Habib Ahmed represented the prosecution and Abdul Waheed Katpar the appellants.

ATTACHMENT STOPPED: The Sindh High Court has suspended the operation of a single-judge order pertaining to attachment of assets of M/s Abbot Laboratories (Pakistan) Ltd., situated at Quaidabad, Landhi, and also the movable assets in an execution application arising out of a money decree for the payment of Rs1. 47 million in a compensation suit.