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LAHORE, Feb 19: A division bench of the Lahore High Court on Monday acquitted a murder convict, who was allegedly involved in a bomb blast in which three people were killed and 13 others injured in a majlis at Imambargah Yousaf Shah Gardez, Multan.
The bench, headed by Justice Mian Muhammad Najamuz Zaman, setting aside the death sentence awarded to appellant-accused Maulvi Ghulam Mustafa observed that the prosecution had failed to prove its case. The court also observed that police had not completed legal formalities for taking the confessional statement of the accused.
The Kup police station, Multan, had registered a case on the complaint of Ghulam Muhammad on Sept 10, 1991. The complainant had alleged that the accused along with accomplices threw two bombs inside the imambargah which killed three people and injured 13 others.
An anti-terrorism court had awarded the accused capital punishment on three counts and ordered to pay Rs200,000 each to heirs of the deceased persons.
REMANDED: An LHC’s division bench on Monday refused to confirm the death sentence of stone group head Muhammad Amer and remanded the case to an anti-terrorism court for retrial which had handed him down capital punishment for killing a drug addict.
The court observed that the ATC framed a joint charge under section 7-A of anti-terrorism act and section 302 of PPC whereas both were separate crimes and the law required framing of separate charges for each crime alleged in the police challan.
The court also pointed that the ATC had awarded him death sentence under 7-A of ATA while no punishment was given under section 302 of PPC.
The appellant through his counsel contended that Naseerabad police had lodged an FIR alleging that he had stoned to death a drug addict.
He said there was no evidence that showed his direct involvement in the case, adding that police could not even identify the deceased. He said the autopsy on the body was conducted three days after the murder.
He pleaded that the ATC had punished him on the basis of his extra judicial confession that was considered the weakest piece of evidence. —Staff Reporter
